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These are the OCR results for the 1888 published version of the book Looking Backward written by Edward Bellamy. The OCR results have been produced with tesseract.
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<TEI xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><teiHeader><fileDesc><titleStmt><title>Untitled Document</title><author/></titleStmt><editionStmt><edition><date/></edition></editionStmt><publicationStmt><p>no publication statement available</p></publicationStmt><sourceDesc><p>Written by OpenOffice</p></sourceDesc></fileDesc><revisionDesc><listChange><change><name/><date/></change></listChange></revisionDesc></teiHeader><text><body><p>The Project Gutenberg EBook of Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy </p><p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with </p><p>almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or</p><p>re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included </p><p>with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net </p><p>Title: Looking Backward </p><p> 2000-1887</p><p>Author: Edward Bellamy </p><p>Release Date: May 12, 2008 [EBook #25439] </p><p>Language: English </p><p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 </p><p>*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOOKING BACKWARD *** </p><p>Produced by Jana Srna, David T. Jones, Alexander Bauer & </p><p>the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at </p><p>http://www.pgdpcanada.net. (This file was produced from </p><p>images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) </p><p>THE </p><p>Riverside Library </p><p>* * * * *</p><p>Looking Backward </p><p>2000-1887 </p><p>By </p><p>EDWARD BELLAMY </p><p>BOSTON AND NEW YORK </p><p>HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY </p><p>The Riverside Press Cambridge </p><p>COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY TICKNOR AND COMPANY </p><p>COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY EDWARD BELLAMY</p><p>COPYRIGHT, 1898, 1915, AND 1917, BY EMMA S. BELLAMY </p><p>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED </p><p>INTRODUCTION </p><p>BY HEYWOOD BROUN </p><p>A good many of my radical friends express a certain kindly </p><p>condescension when they speak of Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward." </p><p>"Of course you know," they say, "that it really isn't first-rate </p><p>economics." </p><p>And yet in further conversation I have known a very large number of </p><p>these same somewhat scornful Socialists to admit, "You know, the first </p><p>thing that got me started to thinking about Socialism was Bellamy's </p><p>'Looking Backward.'" </p><p>From the beginning it has been a highly provocative book. It is now. </p><p>Many of the questions both of mood and technique are even more </p><p>pertinent in the year 1931 than they were in 1887. A critic of the </p><p>_Boston Transcript_ said, when the novel first appeared, that the new </p><p>State imagined by Bellamy was all very well, but that the author lost </p><p>much of his effectiveness by putting his Utopia a scant fifty years </p><p>ahead, and that he might much better have made it seventy-five </p><p>centuries. </p><p>It is true that the fifty years assigned for changing the world </p><p>utterly are almost gone by now. Not everything which was predicted in </p><p>"Looking Backward" has come to pass. But the laugh is not against </p><p>Bellamy, but against his critic. Some of the things which must have </p><p>seemed most improbable of all to the _Transcript_ man of 1887 are now </p><p>actually in being. </p><p>In one respect Edward Bellamy set down a picture of modern American </p><p>life which is almost a hundred per cent realized. It startled me to </p><p>read the passage in which Edith shows the musical schedule to Julian </p><p>West, and tells him to choose which selection he wishes to have </p><p>brought through the air into the music room. It is true that Bellamy </p><p>imagined this broadcasting to be done over telephone wires, as is </p><p>indeed the case to-day in some phases of national hook-ups. But </p><p>consider this quotation: </p><p>"He [Dr. Leete] showed how, by turning a screw, the volume of the </p><p>music could be made to fill the room, or die away to an echo so faint </p><p>and far that one could scarcely be sure whether he heard or imagined </p><p>it." </p><p>That might almost have been lifted bodily from an article in some </p><p>newspaper radio column. </p><p>But Bellamy did see with clear vision things and factors much more </p><p>important than the possibility of hearing a sermon without going to</p><p>church. Much which is now established in Soviet Russia bears at least </p><p>a likeness to the industrial army visioned in this prophetic book. </p><p>However, Communism can scarcely claim Bellamy as its own, for he </p><p>emphasizes repeatedly the non-violent features of the revolution which </p><p>he imagined. Indeed, at one point he argues that the left-wingers of </p><p>his own day impeded change by the very excesses of their technical </p><p>philosophy. </p><p>There is in his book no acceptance of a transitional stage of class </p><p>dictatorship. He sees the change coming through a general recognition </p><p>of the failings of the capitalist system. Indeed, he sees a point in </p><p>economic development where capitalism may not even be good enough for </p><p>the capitalist. </p><p>To the strict Marxian Socialist this is profound and ridiculous </p><p>heresy. To me it does not seem fantastic. And things have happened in </p><p>the world already which were not dreamt of in Karl Marx's philosophy. </p><p>The point I wish to stress is the prevalent notion that all radical </p><p>movements in America stem from the writings of foreign authors. Now, </p><p>Bellamy, of course, was familiar with the pioneer work of Marx. And </p><p>that part of it which he liked he took over. Nevertheless, he </p><p>developed a contribution which was entirely his own. It is irrelevant </p><p>to say that, after all, the two men differed largely in their view of </p><p>the technique by which the new world was to be accomplished. A </p><p>difference in technique, as Trotzky knows to his sorrow, may be as </p><p>profound as a difference in principle. </p><p>Bellamy was essentially a New-Englander. His background was that of </p><p>Boston and its remote suburbs. And when he preaches the necessity of </p><p>the co�perative commonwealth, he does it with a Yankee twang. In fact, </p><p>he is as essentially native American as Norman Thomas, the present </p><p>leader of the Socialist Party in this country. </p><p>I cannot confess any vast interest in the love story which serves as a </p><p>thread for Bellamy's vision of a reconstructed society. But it can be </p><p>said that it is so palpably a thread of sugar crystal that it need not </p><p>get in the way of any reader. </p><p>I am among those who first became interested in Socialism through </p><p>reading "Looking Backward" when I was a freshman in college. It came </p><p>in the first half-year of a course which was designed to prove that </p><p>all radical panaceas were fundamentally unsound in their conception. </p><p>The professor played fair. He gave us the arguments for the radical </p><p>cause in the fall and winter, and proceeded to demolish them in spring </p><p>and early summer. </p><p>But what one learns in the winter sticks more than words uttered in </p><p>the warmth of drowsy May and June. Possibly I took more cuts toward </p><p>the end of the lecture course. All I can remember is the arguments in </p><p>favor of the radical plans. Their fallacies I have forgotten. </p><p>I differ from Bellamy's condescending converts because I feel that he </p><p>is close to an entirely practical and possible scheme of life. Since </p><p>much of the fantastic quality of his vision has been rubbed down into </p><p>reality within half a century, I think there is at least a fair chance </p><p>that another fifty years will confirm Edward Bellamy's position as one </p><p>of the most authentic prophets of our age. </p><p>THE AUTHOR OF "LOOKING BACKWARD" </p><p> "We ask</p><p> To put forth just our strength, our human strength,</p><p> All starting fairly, all equipped alike."</p><p> "But when full roused, each giant limb awake,</p><p> Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast,</p><p> He shall start up and stand on his own earth,</p><p> Then shall his long, triumphant march begin,</p><p> Thence shall his being date."</p><p> BROWNING.</p><p>The great poet's lines express Edward Bellamy's aim in writing his </p><p>famous book. That aim would realize in our country's daily being the </p><p>Great Declaration that gave us national existence; would, in equality </p><p>of opportunity, give man his own earth to stand on, and thereby--the </p><p>race for the first time enabled to enter unhampered upon the use of </p><p>its God-given possibilities--achieve a progress unexampled and </p><p>marvelous. </p><p>It is now twelve years since the writing of 'Looking Backward' changed </p><p>one of the most brilliant of the younger American authors into an </p><p>impassioned social reformer whose work was destined to have momentous </p><p>effect upon the movement of his age. His quality had hitherto been </p><p>manifest in romances like 'Doctor Heidenhof's Process' and 'Miss </p><p>Ludington's Sister,' and in many short stories exquisite in their </p><p>imaginative texture and largely distinguished by a strikingly original </p><p>development of psychical themes. Tales like 'The Blindman's World' and </p><p>'To Whom This May Come' will long linger in the memory of magazine </p><p>readers of the past twenty years. </p><p>'Doctor Heidenhof' was at once recognized as a psychological study of </p><p>uncommon power. "Its writer," said an English review, "is the lineal </p><p>intellectual descendant of Hawthorne." Nor was there in America any </p><p>lack of appreciation of that originality and that distinction of style </p><p>which mark Edward Bellamy's early work. In all this there was a strong </p><p>dominant note prophetic of the author's future activity. That note was </p><p>a steadfast faith in the intrinsic goodness of human nature, a sense </p><p>of the meaning of love in its true and universal sense. 'Looking </p><p>Backward,' though ostensibly a romance, is universally recognized as a </p><p>great economic treatise in a framework of fiction. Without this guise </p><p>it could not have obtained the foothold that it did; there is just </p><p>enough of the skillful novelist's touch in its composition to give </p><p>plausibility to the book and exert a powerful influence upon the </p><p>popular imagination. The ingenious device by which a man of the </p><p>nineteenth century is transferred to the end of the twentieth, and the </p><p>vivid dramatic quality of the dream at the end of the book, are </p><p>instances of the art of the trained novelist which make the work </p><p>unique of its kind. Neither could the book have been a success had not </p><p>the world been ripe for its reception. The materials were ready and </p><p>waiting; the spark struck fire in the midst of them. Little more than </p><p>a decade has followed its publication, and the world is filled with</p><p>the agitation that it helped kindle. It has given direction to </p><p>economic thought and shape to political action. </p><p>Edward Bellamy was born in 1850,--almost exactly in the middle of the </p><p>century whose closing years he was destined so notably to affect. His </p><p>home has always been in his native village of Chicopee Falls, </p><p>Massachusetts, now a portion of the city of Chicopee, one of the group </p><p>of municipalities of which Springfield is the nucleus. He lived on </p><p>Church Street in a house long the home of his father, a beloved </p><p>Baptist clergyman of the town. His clerical ancestry is perhaps </p><p>responsible for his essentially religious nature. His maternal </p><p>grandfather was the Rev. Benjamin Putnam, one of the early pastors of </p><p>Springfield, and among his paternal ancestors was Dr. Joseph Bellamy </p><p>of Bethlehem, Connecticut, a distinguished theologian of revolutionary </p><p>days, a friend of Jonathan Edwards, and the preceptor of Aaron Burr. </p><p>He, however, outgrew with his boyhood all trammels of sect. But this </p><p>inherited trait marked his social views with a strongly </p><p>anti-materialistic and spiritual cast; an ethical purpose dominated </p><p>his ideas, and he held that a merely material prosperity would not be </p><p>worth the working for as a social ideal. An equality in material </p><p>well-being, however, he regarded as the soil essential for the true </p><p>spiritual development of the race. </p><p>Young Bellamy entered Union College at Schenectady, but was not </p><p>graduated. After a year in Germany he studied law and entered the bar, </p><p>but never practiced. A literary career appealed to him more strongly, </p><p>and journalism seemed the more available gateway thereto. His first </p><p>newspaper experience was on the staff of the New York 'Evening Post,' </p><p>and from that journal he went to the Springfield 'Union.' Besides his </p><p>European trip, a journey to Hawaii by way of Panama and a return </p><p>across the continent gave a considerable geographical range to his </p><p>knowledge of the world at large. </p><p>It is notable that his first public utterance, made before a local </p><p>lyceum when a youth in his teens, was devoted to sentiments of social </p><p>reform that foreshadowed his future work. When 'Looking Backward' was </p><p>the sensation of the year, a newspaper charge brought against Mr. </p><p>Bellamy was that he was "posing for notoriety." To those who know the </p><p>retiring, modest, and almost diffident personality of the author, </p><p>nothing could have been more absurd. All opportunities to make money </p><p>upon the magnificent advertising given by a phenomenal literary </p><p>success were disregarded. There were offers of lecture engagements </p><p>that would have brought quick fortune, requests from magazine editors </p><p>for articles and stories on any terms that he might name, proffered </p><p>inducements from publishers to write a new book and to take advantage </p><p>of the occasion to make a volume of his short stories with the </p><p>assurance of a magnificent sale,--to all this he was strikingly </p><p>indifferent. Two or three public addresses, a few articles in the </p><p>reviews, and for a while the editorship of 'The New Nation,' a weekly </p><p>periodical which he established in Boston,--this was the sum of his </p><p>public activity until he should have made himself ready for a second </p><p>sustained effort. To all sordid incentives he was as indifferent as if </p><p>he had been a child of his new order, a century later. The hosts of </p><p>personal friends whom his work made for him knew him as a winsome </p><p>personality; and really to know him was to love him. His nature was </p><p>keenly sympathetic; his conversation ready and charming, quickly </p><p>responsive to suggestion, illuminated by gentle humor and occasionally </p><p>a flash of playful satire. He disliked controversy, with its waste of </p><p>energy in profitless discussion, and jestingly averred that if there</p><p>were any reformers living in his neighborhood he should move away. </p><p>The cardinal features of 'Looking Backward,' that distinguish it from </p><p>the generality of Utopian literature, lie in its definite scheme of </p><p>industrial organization on a national basis, and the equal share </p><p>allotted to all persons in the products of industry, or the public </p><p>income, on the same ground that men share equally in the free gifts of </p><p>nature, like air to breathe and water to drink; it being absolutely </p><p>impossible to determine any equitable ratio between individual </p><p>industrial effort and individual share in industrial product on a </p><p>graded basis. The book, however, was little more than an outline of </p><p>the system, and, after an interval devoted to continuous thought and </p><p>study, many points called for elaboration. Mr. Bellamy gave his last </p><p>years and his ripest efforts to an exposition of the economical and </p><p>ethical basis of the new order which he held that the natural course </p><p>of social evolution would establish. </p><p>'Equality' is the title of his last book. It is a more elaborate work </p><p>than 'Looking Backward,' and in fact is a comprehensive economic </p><p>treatise upon the subject that gives it its name. It is a sequel to </p><p>its famous predecessor, and its keynote is given in the remark that </p><p>the immortal preamble of the American Declaration of Independence </p><p>(characterized as the true constitution of the United States), </p><p>logically contained the entire statement of universal economic </p><p>equality guaranteed by the nation collectively to its members </p><p>individually. "The corner-stone of our state is economic equality, and </p><p>is not that the obvious, necessary, and only adequate pledge of these </p><p>three rights,--life, liberty, and happiness? What is life without its </p><p>material basis, and what is an equal right to life but a right to an </p><p>equal material basis for it? What is liberty? How can men be free who </p><p>must ask the right to labor and to live from their fellow-men and seek </p><p>their bread from the hands of others? How else can any government </p><p>guarantee liberty to men save by providing them a means of labor and </p><p>of life coupled with independence; and how could that be done unless </p><p>the government conducted the economic system upon which employment and </p><p>maintenance depend? Finally, what is implied in the equal right of all </p><p>to the pursuit of happiness? What form of happiness, so far as it </p><p>depends at all upon material facts, is not bound up with economic </p><p>conditions; and how shall an equal opportunity for the pursuit of </p><p>happiness be guaranteed to all save by a guarantee of economic </p><p>equality?" </p><p>The book is so full of ideas, so replete with suggestive aspects, so </p><p>rich in quotable parts, as to form an arsenal of argument for apostles </p><p>of the new democracy. As with 'Looking Backward,' the humane and </p><p>thoughtful reader will lay down 'Equality' and regard the world about </p><p>him with a feeling akin to that with which the child of the tenement </p><p>returns from his "country week" to the foul smells, the discordant </p><p>noises, the incessant strife of the wonted environment. </p><p>But the writing of 'Equality' was a task too great for the physical </p><p>strength and vitality of its author. His health, never robust, gave </p><p>way completely, and the book was finished by an indomitable and </p><p>inflexible dominion of the powerful mind over the failing body which </p><p>was nothing short of heroic. Consumption, that common New England </p><p>inheritance, developed suddenly, and in September of 1897 Mr. Bellamy </p><p>went with his family to Denver, willing to seek the cure which he </p><p>scarcely hoped to find. </p><p>The welcome accorded to him in the West, where his work had met with </p><p>widespread and profound attention, was one of his latest and greatest </p><p>pleasures. Letters came from mining camps, from farms and villages, </p><p>the writers all longing to do something for him to show their love. </p><p>The singular modesty already spoken of as characterizing Mr. Bellamy, </p><p>and an entire unwillingness to accept any personal and public </p><p>recognition, had perhaps kept him from a realization of the fact that </p><p>his fame was international. But the author of a book which in ten </p><p>years had sold nearly a million of copies in England and America, and </p><p>which had been translated into German, French, Russian, Italian, </p><p>Arabic, Bulgarian, and several other languages and dialects, found </p><p>himself not among strangers, although two thousand miles from the home </p><p>of his lifetime. </p><p>He greatly appreciated and gratefully acknowledged his welcome to </p><p>Colorado, which he left in April, 1898, when he realized that his life </p><p>was rapidly drawing to a close. </p><p>He died on Sunday morning, May 22, after a month in the old home which </p><p>he had eagerly desired to see again, leaving a widow and two young </p><p>children. </p><p>At the simple service held there, with his kindred and the friends of </p><p>a lifetime about him, the following passages from 'Looking Backward' </p><p>and 'Equality' were read as a fitting expression, in his own words, of </p><p>that hope for the bettering and uplifting of Humanity, which was the </p><p>real passion of his noble life. </p><p>"Said not the serpent in the old story, 'If you eat of the fruit of </p><p>the tree of knowledge you shall be as gods?' The promise was true in </p><p>words, but apparently there was some mistake about the tree. Perhaps </p><p>it was the tree of selfish knowledge, or else the fruit was not ripe. </p><p>The story is obscure. Christ later said the same thing when he told </p><p>men that they might be the sons of God. But he made no mistake as to </p><p>the tree he showed them, and the fruit was ripe. It was the fruit of </p><p>love, for universal love is at once the seed and fruit, cause and </p><p>effect, of the highest and completest knowledge. Through boundless </p><p>love man becomes a god, for thereby is he made conscious of his </p><p>oneness with God, and all things are put under his feet. 'If we love </p><p>one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.' 'He </p><p>that loveth his brother dwelleth in the light.' 'If any man say, I </p><p>love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.' 'He that loveth not </p><p>his brother abideth in death.' 'God is love, and he that dwelleth in </p><p>love dwelleth in God.' 'Every one that loveth knoweth God.' 'He that </p><p>loveth not knoweth not God.' </p><p>"Here is the very distillation of Christ's teaching as to the </p><p>conditions of entering on the divine life. In this we find the </p><p>sufficient explanation why the revelation which came to Christ so long </p><p>ago and to other illumined souls could not possibly be received by </p><p>mankind in general so long as an inhuman social order made a wall </p><p>between man and God, and why, the moment that wall was cast down, the </p><p>revelation flooded the earth like a sunburst. </p><p>"'If we love one another, God dwelleth in us,' and mark how the words </p><p>were made good in the way by which at last the race found God! It was </p><p>not, remember, by directly, purposely, or consciously seeking God. The </p><p>great enthusiasm of humanity which overthrew the older and brought in</p><p>the fraternal society was not primarily or consciously a Godward </p><p>aspiration at all. It was essentially a humane movement. It was a </p><p>melting and flowing forth of men's hearts toward one another; a rush </p><p>of contrite, repentant tenderness; an impassioned impulse of mutual </p><p>love and self-devotion to the common weal. But 'if we love one </p><p>another, God dwelleth in us,' and so man found it. It appears that </p><p>there came a moment, the most transcendent moment in the history of </p><p>the race of man, when with the fraternal glow of this world of </p><p>new-found embracing brothers there seems to have mingled the ineffable </p><p>thrill of a divine participation, as if the hand of God were clasped </p><p>over the joined hands of men. And so it has continued to this day and </p><p>shall for evermore. </p><p>"Your seers and poets in exalted moments had seen that death was but a </p><p>step in life, but this seemed to most of you to have been a hard </p><p>saying. Nowadays, as life advances toward its close, instead of being </p><p>shadowed by gloom, it is marked by an access of impassioned expectancy </p><p>which would cause the young to envy the old, but for the knowledge </p><p>that in a little while the same door will be opened to them. In your </p><p>day the undertone of life seems to have been one of unutterable </p><p>sadness, which, like the moaning of the sea to those who live near the </p><p>ocean, made itself audible whenever for a moment the noise and bustle </p><p>of petty engrossments ceased. Now this undertone is so exultant that </p><p>we are still to hear it. </p><p>"Do you ask what we look for when unnumbered generations shall have </p><p>passed away? I answer, the way stretches far before us, but the end is </p><p>lost in light. For twofold is the return of man to God, 'who is our </p><p>home,' the return of the individual by the way of death, and the </p><p>return of the race by the fulfillment of its evolution, when the </p><p>divine secret hidden in the germ shall be perfectly unfolded. With a </p><p>tear for the dark past, turn we then to the dazzling future, and, </p><p>veiling our eyes, press forward. The long and weary winter of the race </p><p>is ended. Its summer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The </p><p>heavens are before it." </p><p>There are those who have made strenuous objections to the ideals of </p><p>Edward Bellamy on the ground that they are based on nothing better </p><p>than purely material well-being. In the presence of the foregoing </p><p>utterance can they maintain that attitude? </p><p> SYLVESTER BAXTER.</p><p>AUTHOR'S PREFACE </p><p>Historical Section Shawmut College, Boston, </p><p>December 26, 2000. </p><p>Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century, enjoying </p><p>the blessings of a social order at once so simple and logical that it </p><p>seems but the triumph of common sense, it is no doubt difficult for </p><p>those whose studies have not been largely historical to realize that </p><p>the present organization of society is, in its completeness, less than </p><p>a century old. No historical fact is, however, better established than </p><p>that till nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was the general</p><p>belief that the ancient industrial system, with all its shocking </p><p>social consequences, was destined to last, with possibly a little </p><p>patching, to the end of time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does </p><p>it seem that so prodigious a moral and material transformation as has </p><p>taken place since then could have been accomplished in so brief an </p><p>interval? The readiness with which men accustom themselves, as </p><p>matters of course, to improvements in their condition, which, when </p><p>anticipated, seemed to leave nothing more to be desired, could not be </p><p>more strikingly illustrated. What reflection could be better </p><p>calculated to moderate the enthusiasm of reformers who count for their </p><p>reward on the lively gratitude of future ages! </p><p>The object of this volume is to assist persons who, while desiring to </p><p>gain a more definite idea of the social contrasts between the </p><p>nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are daunted by the formal aspect </p><p>of the histories which treat the subject. Warned by a teacher's </p><p>experience that learning is accounted a weariness to the flesh, the </p><p>author has sought to alleviate the instructive quality of the book by </p><p>casting it in the form of a romantic narrative, which he would be glad </p><p>to fancy not wholly devoid of interest on its own account. </p><p>The reader, to whom modern social institutions and their underlying </p><p>principles are matters of course, may at times find Dr. Leete's </p><p>explanations of them rather trite,--but it must be remembered that to </p><p>Dr. Leete's guest they were not matters of course, and that this book </p><p>is written for the express purpose of inducing the reader to forget </p><p>for the nonce that they are so to him. One word more. The almost </p><p>universal theme of the writers and orators who have celebrated this </p><p>bi-millennial epoch has been the future rather than the past, not the </p><p>advance that has been made, but the progress that shall be made, ever </p><p>onward and upward, till the race shall achieve its ineffable destiny. </p><p>This is well, wholly well, but it seems to me that nowhere can we find </p><p>more solid ground for daring anticipations of human development during </p><p>the next one thousand years, than by "Looking Backward" upon the </p><p>progress of the last one hundred. </p><p>That this volume may be so fortunate as to find readers whose interest </p><p>in the subject shall incline them to overlook the deficiencies of the </p><p>treatment is the hope in which the author steps aside and leaves Mr. </p><p>Julian West to speak for himself. </p><p>LOOKING BACKWARD. </p><p>CHAPTER I. </p><p>I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857. "What!" </p><p>you say, "eighteen fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He means nineteen </p><p>fifty-seven, of course." I beg pardon, but there is no mistake. It was </p><p>about four in the afternoon of December the 26th, one day after </p><p>Christmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I first breathed the east </p><p>wind of Boston, which, I assure the reader, was at that remote period </p><p>marked by the same penetrating quality characterizing it in the </p><p>present year of grace, 2000. </p><p>These statements seem so absurd on their face, especially when I add</p><p>that I am a young man apparently of about thirty years of age, that no </p><p>person can be blamed for refusing to read another word of what </p><p>promises to be a mere imposition upon his credulity. Nevertheless I </p><p>earnestly assure the reader that no imposition is intended, and will </p><p>undertake, if he shall follow me a few pages, to entirely convince him </p><p>of this. If I may, then, provisionally assume, with the pledge of </p><p>justifying the assumption, that I know better than the reader when I </p><p>was born, I will go on with my narrative. As every schoolboy knows, in </p><p>the latter part of the nineteenth century the civilization of to-day, </p><p>or anything like it, did not exist, although the elements which were </p><p>to develop it were already in ferment. Nothing had, however, occurred </p><p>to modify the immemorial division of society into the four classes, or </p><p>nations, as they may be more fitly called, since the differences </p><p>between them were far greater than those between any nations nowadays, </p><p>of the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant. I myself was </p><p>rich and also educated, and possessed, therefore, all the elements of </p><p>happiness enjoyed by the most fortunate in that age. Living in luxury, </p><p>and occupied only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements of </p><p>life, I derived the means of my support from the labor of others, </p><p>rendering no sort of service in return. My parents and grandparents </p><p>had lived in the same way, and I expected that my descendants, if I </p><p>had any, would enjoy a like easy existence. </p><p>But how could I live without service to the world? you ask. Why should </p><p>the world have supported in utter idleness one who was able to render </p><p>service? The answer is that my great-grandfather had accumulated a sum </p><p>of money on which his descendants had ever since lived. The sum, you </p><p>will naturally infer, must have been very large not to have been </p><p>exhausted in supporting three generations in idleness. This, however, </p><p>was not the fact. The sum had been originally by no means large. It </p><p>was, in fact, much larger now that three generations had been </p><p>supported upon it in idleness, than it was at first. This mystery of </p><p>use without consumption, of warmth without combustion, seems like </p><p>magic, but was merely an ingenious application of the art now happily </p><p>lost but carried to great perfection by your ancestors, of shifting </p><p>the burden of one's support on the shoulders of others. The man who </p><p>had accomplished this, and it was the end all sought, was said to live </p><p>on the income of his investments. To explain at this point how the </p><p>ancient methods of industry made this possible would delay us too </p><p>much. I shall only stop now to say that interest on investments was a </p><p>species of tax in perpetuity upon the product of those engaged in </p><p>industry which a person possessing or inheriting money was able to </p><p>levy. It must not be supposed that an arrangement which seems so </p><p>unnatural and preposterous according to modern notions was never </p><p>criticised by your ancestors. It had been the effort of law-givers and </p><p>prophets from the earliest ages to abolish interest, or at least to </p><p>limit it to the smallest possible rate. All these efforts had, </p><p>however, failed, as they necessarily must so long as the ancient </p><p>social organizations prevailed. At the time of which I write, the </p><p>latter part of the nineteenth century, governments had generally given </p><p>up trying to regulate the subject at all. </p><p>By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the </p><p>way people lived together in those days, and especially of the </p><p>relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps I cannot do </p><p>better than to compare society as it then was to a prodigious coach </p><p>which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely </p><p>along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and </p><p>permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow.</p><p>Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a </p><p>road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at </p><p>the steepest ascents. These seats on top were very breezy and </p><p>comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their occupants could enjoy the </p><p>scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of the </p><p>straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the </p><p>competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in </p><p>life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his </p><p>child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat </p><p>to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by </p><p>which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so </p><p>easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the </p><p>coach persons were slipping out of them and falling to the ground, </p><p>where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help </p><p>to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It </p><p>was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's seat, </p><p>and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends </p><p>was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode. </p><p>But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their very </p><p>luxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of </p><p>their brothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge that </p><p>their own weight added to their toil? Had they no compassion for </p><p>fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished them? Oh, yes; </p><p>commiseration was frequently expressed by those who rode for those who </p><p>had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle came to a bad place </p><p>in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep </p><p>hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, their </p><p>agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, </p><p>the many who fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a </p><p>very distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable </p><p>displays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the </p><p>passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, </p><p>exhorting them to patience, and holding out hopes of possible </p><p>compensation in another world for the hardness of their lot, while </p><p>others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the crippled and </p><p>injured. It was agreed that it was a great pity that the coach should </p><p>be so hard to pull, and there was a sense of general relief when the </p><p>specially bad piece of road was gotten over. This relief was not, </p><p>indeed, wholly on account of the team, for there was always some </p><p>danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which all would </p><p>lose their seats. </p><p>It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of </p><p>the misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers' </p><p>sense of the value of their seats upon the coach, and to cause them to </p><p>hold on to them more desperately than before. If the passengers could </p><p>only have felt assured that neither they nor their friends would ever </p><p>fall from the top, it is probable that, beyond contributing to the </p><p>funds for liniments and bandages, they would have troubled themselves </p><p>extremely little about those who dragged the coach. </p><p>I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women of the </p><p>twentieth century an incredible inhumanity, but there are two facts, </p><p>both very curious, which partly explain it. In the first place, it was </p><p>firmly and sincerely believed that there was no other way in which </p><p>Society could get along, except the many pulled at the rope and the </p><p>few rode, and not only this, but that no very radical improvement even </p><p>was possible, either in the harness, the coach, the roadway, or the</p><p>distribution of the toil. It had always been as it was, and it always </p><p>would be so. It was a pity, but it could not be helped, and philosophy </p><p>forbade wasting compassion on what was beyond remedy. </p><p>The other fact is yet more curious, consisting in a singular </p><p>hallucination which those on the top of the coach generally shared, </p><p>that they were not exactly like their brothers and sisters who pulled </p><p>at the rope, but of finer clay, in some way belonging to a higher </p><p>order of beings who might justly expect to be drawn. This seems </p><p>unaccountable, but, as I once rode on this very coach and shared that </p><p>very hallucination, I ought to be believed. The strangest thing about </p><p>the hallucination was that those who had but just climbed up from the </p><p>ground, before they had outgrown the marks of the rope upon their </p><p>hands, began to fall under its influence. As for those whose parents </p><p>and grandparents before them had been so fortunate as to keep their </p><p>seats on the top, the conviction they cherished of the essential </p><p>difference between their sort of humanity and the common article was </p><p>absolute. The effect of such a delusion in moderating fellow feeling </p><p>for the sufferings of the mass of men into a distant and philosophical </p><p>compassion is obvious. To it I refer as the only extenuation I can </p><p>offer for the indifference which, at the period I write of, marked my </p><p>own attitude toward the misery of my brothers. </p><p>In 1887 I came to my thirtieth year. Although still unmarried, I was </p><p>engaged to wed Edith Bartlett. She, like myself, rode on the top of </p><p>the coach. That is to say, not to encumber ourselves further with an </p><p>illustration which has, I hope, served its purpose of giving the </p><p>reader some general impression of how we lived then, her family was </p><p>wealthy. In that age, when money alone commanded all that was </p><p>agreeable and refined in life, it was enough for a woman to be rich to </p><p>have suitors; but Edith Bartlett was beautiful and graceful also. </p><p>My lady readers, I am aware, will protest at this. "Handsome she might </p><p>have been," I hear them saying, "but graceful never, in the costumes </p><p>which were the fashion at that period, when the head covering was a </p><p>dizzy structure a foot tall, and the almost incredible extension of </p><p>the skirt behind by means of artificial contrivances more thoroughly </p><p>dehumanized the form than any former device of dressmakers. Fancy any </p><p>one graceful in such a costume!" The point is certainly well taken, </p><p>and I can only reply that while the ladies of the twentieth century </p><p>are lovely demonstrations of the effect of appropriate drapery in </p><p>accenting feminine graces, my recollection of their great-grandmothers </p><p>enables me to maintain that no deformity of costume can wholly </p><p>disguise them. </p><p>Our marriage only waited on the completion of the house which I was </p><p>building for our occupancy in one of the most desirable parts of the </p><p>city, that is to say, a part chiefly inhabited by the rich. For it </p><p>must be understood that the comparative desirability of different </p><p>parts of Boston for residence depended then, not on natural features, </p><p>but on the character of the neighboring population. Each class or </p><p>nation lived by itself, in quarters of its own. A rich man living </p><p>among the poor, an educated man among the uneducated, was like one </p><p>living in isolation among a jealous and alien race. When the house had </p><p>been begun, its completion by the winter of 1886 had been expected. </p><p>The spring of the following year found it, however, yet incomplete, </p><p>and my marriage still a thing of the future. The cause of a delay </p><p>calculated to be particularly exasperating to an ardent lover was a </p><p>series of strikes, that is to say, concerted refusals to work on the</p><p>part of the brick-layers, masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and </p><p>other trades concerned in house building. What the specific causes of </p><p>these strikes were I do not remember. Strikes had become so common at </p><p>that period that people had ceased to inquire into their particular </p><p>grounds. In one department of industry or another, they had been </p><p>nearly incessant ever since the great business crisis of 1873. In fact </p><p>it had come to be the exceptional thing to see any class of laborers </p><p>pursue their avocation steadily for more than a few months at a time. </p><p>The reader who observes the dates alluded to will of course recognize </p><p>in these disturbances of industry the first and incoherent phase of </p><p>the great movement which ended in the establishment of the modern </p><p>industrial system with all its social consequences. This is all so </p><p>plain in the retrospect that a child can understand it, but not being </p><p>prophets, we of that day had no clear idea what was happening to us. </p><p>What we did see was that industrially the country was in a very queer </p><p>way. The relation between the workingman and the employer, between </p><p>labor and capital, appeared in some unaccountable manner to have </p><p>become dislocated. The working classes had quite suddenly and very </p><p>generally become infected with a profound discontent with their </p><p>condition, and an idea that it could be greatly bettered if they only </p><p>knew how to go about it. On every side, with one accord, they </p><p>preferred demands for higher pay, shorter hours, better dwellings, </p><p>better educational advantages, and a share in the refinements and </p><p>luxuries of life, demands which it was impossible to see the way to </p><p>granting unless the world were to become a great deal richer than it </p><p>then was. Though they knew something of what they wanted, they knew </p><p>nothing of how to accomplish it, and the eager enthusiasm with which </p><p>they thronged about any one who seemed likely to give them any light </p><p>on the subject lent sudden reputation to many would-be leaders, some </p><p>of whom had little enough light to give. However chimerical the </p><p>aspirations of the laboring classes might be deemed, the devotion </p><p>with which they supported one another in the strikes, which were their </p><p>chief weapon, and the sacrifices which they underwent to carry them </p><p>out left no doubt of their dead earnestness. </p><p>As to the final outcome of the labor troubles, which was the phrase by </p><p>which the movement I have described was most commonly referred to, the </p><p>opinions of the people of my class differed according to individual </p><p>temperament. The sanguine argued very forcibly that it was in the very </p><p>nature of things impossible that the new hopes of the workingmen could </p><p>be satisfied, simply because the world had not the wherewithal to </p><p>satisfy them. It was only because the masses worked very hard and </p><p>lived on short commons that the race did not starve outright, and no </p><p>considerable improvement in their condition was possible while the </p><p>world, as a whole, remained so poor. It was not the capitalists whom </p><p>the laboring men were contending with, these maintained, but the </p><p>iron-bound environment of humanity, and it was merely a question of </p><p>the thickness of their skulls when they would discover the fact and </p><p>make up their minds to endure what they could not cure. </p><p>The less sanguine admitted all this. Of course the workingmen's </p><p>aspirations were impossible of fulfillment for natural reasons, but </p><p>there were grounds to fear that they would not discover this fact </p><p>until they had made a sad mess of society They had the votes and the </p><p>power to do so if they pleased, and their leaders meant they should. </p><p>Some of these desponding observers went so far as to predict an </p><p>impending social cataclysm. Humanity, they argued, having climbed to </p><p>the top round of the ladder of civilization, was about to take a</p><p>header into chaos, after which it would doubtless pick itself up, turn </p><p>round, and begin to climb again. Repeated experiences of this sort in </p><p>historic and prehistoric times possibly accounted for the puzzling </p><p>bumps on the human cranium. Human history, like all great movements, </p><p>was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning. The idea of </p><p>indefinite progress in a right line was a chimera of the imagination, </p><p>with no analogue in nature. The parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet </p><p>better illustration of the career of humanity. Tending upward and </p><p>sunward from the aphelion of barbarism, the race attained the </p><p>perihelion of civilization only to plunge downward once more to its </p><p>nether goal in the regions of chaos. </p><p>This, of course, was an extreme opinion, but I remember serious men </p><p>among my acquaintances who, in discussing the signs of the times, </p><p>adopted a very similar tone. It was no doubt the common opinion of </p><p>thoughtful men that society was approaching a critical period which </p><p>might result in great changes. The labor troubles, their causes, </p><p>course, and cure, took lead of all other topics in the public prints, </p><p>and in serious conversation. </p><p>The nervous tension of the public mind could not have been more </p><p>strikingly illustrated than it was by the alarm resulting from the </p><p>talk of a small band of men who called themselves anarchists, and </p><p>proposed to terrify the American people into adopting their ideas by </p><p>threats of violence, as if a mighty nation which had but just put down </p><p>a rebellion of half its own numbers, in order to maintain its </p><p>political system, were likely to adopt a new social system out of </p><p>fear. </p><p>As one of the wealthy, with a large stake in the existing order of </p><p>things, I naturally shared the apprehensions of my class. The </p><p>particular grievance I had against the working classes at the time of </p><p>which I write, on account of the effect of their strikes in postponing </p><p>my wedded bliss, no doubt lent a special animosity to my feeling </p><p>toward them. </p><p>CHAPTER II. </p><p>The thirtieth day of May, 1887, fell on a Monday. It was one of the </p><p>annual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the nineteenth </p><p>century, being set apart under the name of Decoration Day, for doing </p><p>honor to the memory of the soldiers of the North who took part in the </p><p>war for the preservation of the union of the States. The survivors of </p><p>the war, escorted by military and civic processions and bands of </p><p>music, were wont on this occasion to visit the cemeteries and lay </p><p>wreaths of flowers upon the graves of their dead comrades, the </p><p>ceremony being a very solemn and touching one. The eldest brother of </p><p>Edith Bartlett had fallen in the war, and on Decoration Day the family </p><p>was in the habit of making a visit to Mount Auburn, where he lay. </p><p>I had asked permission to make one of the party, and, on our return to </p><p>the city at nightfall, remained to dine with the family of my </p><p>betrothed. In the drawing-room, after dinner, I picked up an evening </p><p>paper and read of a fresh strike in the building trades, which would </p><p>probably still further delay the completion of my unlucky house. I</p><p>remember distinctly how exasperated I was at this, and the </p><p>objurgations, as forcible as the presence of the ladies permitted, </p><p>which I lavished upon workmen in general, and these strikers in </p><p>particular. I had abundant sympathy from those about me, and the </p><p>remarks made in the desultory conversation which followed, upon the </p><p>unprincipled conduct of the labor agitators, were calculated to make </p><p>those gentlemen's ears tingle. It was agreed that affairs were going </p><p>from bad to worse very fast, and that there was no telling what we </p><p>should come to soon. "The worst of it," I remember Mrs. Bartlett's </p><p>saying, "is that the working classes all over the world seem to be </p><p>going crazy at once. In Europe it is far worse even than here. I'm </p><p>sure I should not dare to live there at all. I asked Mr. Bartlett the </p><p>other day where we should emigrate to if all the terrible things took </p><p>place which those socialists threaten. He said he did not know any </p><p>place now where society could be called stable except Greenland, </p><p>Patagonia, and the Chinese Empire." "Those Chinamen knew what they </p><p>were about," somebody added, "when they refused to let in our western </p><p>civilization. They knew what it would lead to better than we did. They </p><p>saw it was nothing but dynamite in disguise." </p><p>After this, I remember drawing Edith apart and trying to persuade her </p><p>that it would be better to be married at once without waiting for the </p><p>completion of the house, spending the time in travel till our home </p><p>was ready for us. She was remarkably handsome that evening, the </p><p>mourning costume that she wore in recognition of the day setting off </p><p>to great advantage the purity of her complexion. I can see her even </p><p>now with my mind's eye just as she looked that night. When I took my </p><p>leave she followed me into the hall and I kissed her good-by as usual. </p><p>There was no circumstance out of the common to distinguish this </p><p>parting from previous occasions when we had bade each other good-by </p><p>for a night or a day. There was absolutely no premonition in my mind, </p><p>or I am sure in hers, that this was more than an ordinary separation. </p><p>Ah, well! </p><p>The hour at which I had left my betrothed was a rather early one for a </p><p>lover, but the fact was no reflection on my devotion. I was a </p><p>confirmed sufferer from insomnia, and although otherwise perfectly </p><p>well had been completely fagged out that day, from having slept </p><p>scarcely at all the two previous nights. Edith knew this and had </p><p>insisted on sending me home by nine o'clock, with strict orders to go </p><p>to bed at once. </p><p>The house in which I lived had been occupied by three generations of </p><p>the family of which I was the only living representative in the direct </p><p>line. It was a large, ancient wooden mansion, very elegant in an </p><p>old-fashioned way within, but situated in a quarter that had long </p><p>since become undesirable for residence, from its invasion by tenement </p><p>houses and manufactories. It was not a house to which I could think of </p><p>bringing a bride, much less so dainty a one as Edith Bartlett. I had </p><p>advertised it for sale, and meanwhile merely used it for sleeping </p><p>purposes, dining at my club. One servant, a faithful colored man by </p><p>the name of Sawyer, lived with me and attended to my few wants. One </p><p>feature of the house I expected to miss greatly when I should leave </p><p>it, and this was the sleeping chamber which I had built under the </p><p>foundations. I could not have slept in the city at all, with its never </p><p>ceasing nightly noises, if I had been obliged to use an upstairs </p><p>chamber. But to this subterranean room no murmur from the upper world </p><p>ever penetrated. When I had entered it and closed the door, I was</p><p>surrounded by the silence of the tomb. In order to prevent the </p><p>dampness of the subsoil from penetrating the chamber, the walls had </p><p>been laid in hydraulic cement and were very thick, and the floor was </p><p>likewise protected. In order that the room might serve also as a vault </p><p>equally proof against violence and flames, for the storage of </p><p>valuables, I had roofed it with stone slabs hermetically sealed, and </p><p>the outer door was of iron with a thick coating of asbestos. A small </p><p>pipe, communicating with a wind-mill on the top of the house, insured </p><p>the renewal of air. </p><p>It might seem that the tenant of such a chamber ought to be able to </p><p>command slumber, but it was rare that I slept well, even there, two </p><p>nights in succession. So accustomed was I to wakefulness that I minded </p><p>little the loss of one night's rest. A second night, however, spent in </p><p>my reading chair instead of my bed, tired me out, and I never allowed </p><p>myself to go longer than that without slumber, from fear of nervous </p><p>disorder. From this statement it will be inferred that I had at my </p><p>command some artificial means for inducing sleep in the last resort, </p><p>and so in fact I had. If after two sleepless nights I found myself on </p><p>the approach of the third without sensations of drowsiness, I called </p><p>in Dr. Pillsbury. </p><p>He was a doctor by courtesy only, what was called in those days an </p><p>"irregular" or "quack" doctor. He called himself a "Professor of </p><p>Animal Magnetism." I had come across him in the course of some amateur </p><p>investigations into the phenomena of animal magnetism. I don't think </p><p>he knew anything about medicine, but he was certainly a remarkable </p><p>mesmerist. It was for the purpose of being put to sleep by his </p><p>manipulations that I used to send for him when I found a third night </p><p>of sleeplessness impending. Let my nervous excitement or mental </p><p>preoccupation be however great, Dr. Pillsbury never failed, after a </p><p>short time, to leave me in a deep slumber, which continued till I was </p><p>aroused by a reversal of the mesmerizing process. The process for </p><p>awaking the sleeper was much simpler than that for putting him to </p><p>sleep, and for convenience I had made Dr. Pillsbury teach Sawyer how </p><p>to do it. </p><p>My faithful servant alone knew for what purpose Dr. Pillsbury visited </p><p>me, or that he did so at all. Of course, when Edith became my wife I </p><p>should have to tell her my secrets. I had not hitherto told her this, </p><p>because there was unquestionably a slight risk in the mesmeric sleep, </p><p>and I knew she would set her face against my practice. The risk, of </p><p>course, was that it might become too profound and pass into a trance </p><p>beyond the mesmerizer's power to break, ending in death. Repeated </p><p>experiments had fully convinced me that the risk was next to nothing </p><p>if reasonable precautions were exercised, and of this I hoped, though </p><p>doubtingly, to convince Edith. I went directly home after leaving her, </p><p>and at once sent Sawyer to fetch Dr. Pillsbury. Meanwhile I sought my </p><p>subterranean sleeping chamber, and exchanging my costume for a </p><p>comfortable dressing-gown, sat down to read the letters by the evening </p><p>mail which Sawyer had laid on my reading table. </p><p>One of them was from the builder of my new house, and confirmed what I </p><p>had inferred from the newspaper item. The new strikes, he said, had </p><p>postponed indefinitely the completion of the contract, as neither </p><p>masters nor workmen would concede the point at issue without a long </p><p>struggle. Caligula wished that the Roman people had but one neck that </p><p>he might cut it off, and as I read this letter I am afraid that for a </p><p>moment I was capable of wishing the same thing concerning the laboring</p><p>classes of America. The return of Sawyer with the doctor interrupted </p><p>my gloomy meditations. </p><p>It appeared that he had with difficulty been able to secure his </p><p>services, as he was preparing to leave the city that very night. The </p><p>doctor explained that since he had seen me last he had learned of a </p><p>fine professional opening in a distant city, and decided to take </p><p>prompt advantage of it. On my asking, in some panic, what I was to do </p><p>for some one to put me to sleep, he gave me the names of several </p><p>mesmerizers in Boston who, he averred, had quite as great powers as </p><p>he. </p><p>Somewhat relieved on this point, I instructed Sawyer to rouse me at </p><p>nine o'clock next morning, and, lying down on the bed in my </p><p>dressing-gown, assumed a comfortable attitude, and surrendered myself </p><p>to the manipulations of the mesmerizer. Owing, perhaps, to my </p><p>unusually nervous state, I was slower than common in losing </p><p>consciousness, but at length a delicious drowsiness stole over me. </p><p>CHAPTER III. </p><p>"He is going to open his eyes. He had better see but one of us at </p><p>first." </p><p>"Promise me, then, that you will not tell him." </p><p>The first voice was a man's, the second a woman's, and both spoke in </p><p>whispers. </p><p>"I will see how he seems," replied the man. </p><p>"No, no, promise me," persisted the other. </p><p>"Let her have her way," whispered a third voice, also a woman. </p><p>"Well, well, I promise, then," answered the man. "Quick, go! He is </p><p>coming out of it." </p><p>There was a rustle of garments and I opened my eyes. A fine looking </p><p>man of perhaps sixty was bending over me, an expression of much </p><p>benevolence mingled with great curiosity upon his features. He was an </p><p>utter stranger. I raised myself on an elbow and looked around. The </p><p>room was empty. I certainly had never been in it before, or one </p><p>furnished like it. I looked back at my companion. He smiled. </p><p>"How do you feel?" he inquired. </p><p>"Where am I?" I demanded. </p><p>"You are in my house," was the reply. </p><p>"How came I here?" </p><p>"We will talk about that when you are stronger. Meanwhile, I beg you </p><p>will feel no anxiety. You are among friends and in good hands. How do</p><p>you feel?" </p><p>"A bit queerly," I replied, "but I am well, I suppose. Will you tell </p><p>me how I came to be indebted to your hospitality? What has happened to </p><p>me? How came I here? It was in my own house that I went to sleep." </p><p>"There will be time enough for explanations later," my unknown host </p><p>replied, with a reassuring smile. "It will be better to avoid </p><p>agitating talk until you are a little more yourself. Will you oblige </p><p>me by taking a couple of swallows of this mixture? It will do you </p><p>good. I am a physician." </p><p>I repelled the glass with my hand and sat up on the couch, although </p><p>with an effort, for my head was strangely light. </p><p>"I insist upon knowing at once where I am and what you have been doing </p><p>with me," I said. </p><p>"My dear sir," responded my companion, "let me beg that you will not </p><p>agitate yourself. I would rather you did not insist upon explanations </p><p>so soon, but if you do, I will try to satisfy you, provided you will </p><p>first take this draught, which will strengthen you somewhat." </p><p>I thereupon drank what he offered me. Then he said, "It is not so </p><p>simple a matter as you evidently suppose to tell you how you came </p><p>here. You can tell me quite as much on that point as I can tell you. </p><p>You have just been roused from a deep sleep, or, more properly, </p><p>trance. So much I can tell you. You say you were in your own house </p><p>when you fell into that sleep. May I ask you when that was?" </p><p>"When?" I replied, "when? Why, last evening, of course, at about ten </p><p>o'clock. I left my man Sawyer orders to call me at nine o'clock. What </p><p>has become of Sawyer?" </p><p>"I can't precisely tell you that," replied my companion, regarding me </p><p>with a curious expression, "but I am sure that he is excusable for not </p><p>being here. And now can you tell me a little more explicitly when it </p><p>was that you fell into that sleep, the date, I mean?" </p><p>"Why, last night, of course; I said so, didn't I? that is, unless I </p><p>have overslept an entire day. Great heavens! that cannot be possible; </p><p>and yet I have an odd sensation of having slept a long time. It was </p><p>Decoration Day that I went to sleep." </p><p>"Decoration Day?" </p><p>"Yes, Monday, the 30th." </p><p>"Pardon me, the 30th of what?" </p><p>"Why, of this month, of course, unless I have slept into June, but </p><p>that can't be." </p><p>"This month is September." </p><p>"September! You don't mean that I've slept since May! God in heaven! </p><p>Why, it is incredible." </p><p>"We shall see," replied my companion; "you say that it was May 30th</p><p>when you went to sleep?" </p><p>"Yes." </p><p>"May I ask of what year?" </p><p>I stared blankly at him, incapable of speech, for some moments. </p><p>"Of what year?" I feebly echoed at last. </p><p>"Yes, of what year, if you please? After you have told me that I shall </p><p>be able to tell you how long you have slept." </p><p>"It was the year 1887," I said. </p><p>My companion insisted that I should take another draught from the </p><p>glass, and felt my pulse. </p><p>"My dear sir," he said, "your manner indicates that you are a man of </p><p>culture, which I am aware was by no means the matter of course in your </p><p>day it now is. No doubt, then, you have yourself made the observation </p><p>that nothing in this world can be truly said to be more wonderful than </p><p>anything else. The causes of all phenomena are equally adequate, and </p><p>the results equally matters of course. That you should be startled by </p><p>what I shall tell you is to be expected; but I am confident that you </p><p>will not permit it to affect your equanimity unduly. Your appearance </p><p>is that of a young man of barely thirty, and your bodily condition </p><p>seems not greatly different from that of one just roused from a </p><p>somewhat too long and profound sleep, and yet this is the tenth day </p><p>of September in the year 2000, and you have slept exactly one hundred </p><p>and thirteen years, three months, and eleven days." </p><p>Feeling partially dazed, I drank a cup of some sort of broth at my </p><p>companion's suggestion, and, immediately afterward becoming very </p><p>drowsy, went off into a deep sleep. </p><p>When I awoke it was broad daylight in the room, which had been lighted </p><p>artificially when I was awake before. My mysterious host was sitting </p><p>near. He was not looking at me when I opened my eyes, and I had a good </p><p>opportunity to study him and meditate upon my extraordinary situation, </p><p>before he observed that I was awake. My giddiness was all gone, and my </p><p>mind perfectly clear. The story that I had been asleep one hundred and </p><p>thirteen years, which, in my former weak and bewildered condition, I </p><p>had accepted without question, recurred to me now only to be rejected </p><p>as a preposterous attempt at an imposture, the motive of which it was </p><p>impossible remotely to surmise. </p><p>Something extraordinary had certainly happened to account for my </p><p>waking up in this strange house with this unknown companion, but my </p><p>fancy was utterly impotent to suggest more than than the wildest guess </p><p>as to what that something might have been. Could it be that I was the </p><p>victim of some sort of conspiracy? It looked so, certainly; and yet, </p><p>if human lineaments ever gave true evidence, it was certain that this </p><p>man by my side, with a face so refined and ingenuous, was no party to </p><p>any scheme of crime or outrage. Then it occurred to me to question if </p><p>I might not be the butt of some elaborate practical joke on the part </p><p>of friends who had somehow learned the secret of my underground </p><p>chamber and taken this means of impressing me with the peril of </p><p>mesmeric experiments. There were great difficulties in the way of this</p><p>theory; Sawyer would never have betrayed me, nor had I any friends at </p><p>all likely to undertake such an enterprise; nevertheless the </p><p>supposition that I was the victim of a practical joke seemed on the </p><p>whole the only one tenable. Half expecting to catch a glimpse of some </p><p>familiar face grinning from behind a chair or curtain, I looked </p><p>carefully about the room. When my eyes next rested on my companion, he </p><p>was looking at me. </p><p>"You have had a fine nap of twelve hours," he said briskly, "and I can </p><p>see that it has done you good. You look much better. Your color is </p><p>good and your eyes are bright. How do you feel?" </p><p>"I never felt better," I said, sitting up. </p><p>"You remember your first waking, no doubt," he pursued, "and your </p><p>surprise when I told you how long you had been asleep?" </p><p>"You said, I believe, that I had slept one hundred and thirteen </p><p>years." </p><p>"Exactly." </p><p>"You will admit," I said, with an ironical smile, "that the story was </p><p>rather an improbable one." </p><p>"Extraordinary, I admit," he responded, "but given the proper </p><p>conditions, not improbable nor inconsistent with what we know of the </p><p>trance state. When complete, as in your case, the vital functions are </p><p>absolutely suspended, and there is no waste of the tissues. No limit </p><p>can be set to the possible duration of a trance when the external </p><p>conditions protect the body from physical injury. This trance of yours </p><p>is indeed the longest of which there is any positive record, but there </p><p>is no known reason wherefore, had you not been discovered and had the </p><p>chamber in which we found you continued intact, you might not have </p><p>remained in a state of suspended animation till, at the end of </p><p>indefinite ages, the gradual refrigeration of the earth had destroyed </p><p>the bodily tissues and set the spirit free." </p><p>I had to admit that, if I were indeed the victim of a practical joke, </p><p>its authors had chosen an admirable agent for carrying out their </p><p>imposition. The impressive and even eloquent manner of this man would </p><p>have lent dignity to an argument that the moon was made of cheese. The </p><p>smile with which I had regarded him as he advanced his trance </p><p>hypothesis did not appear to confuse him in the slightest degree. </p><p>"Perhaps," I said, "you will go on and favor me with some particulars </p><p>as to the circumstances under which you discovered this chamber of </p><p>which you speak, and its contents. I enjoy good fiction." </p><p>"In this case," was the grave reply, "no fiction could be so strange </p><p>as the truth. You must know that these many years I have been </p><p>cherishing the idea of building a laboratory in the large garden </p><p>beside this house, for the purpose of chemical experiments for which I </p><p>have a taste. Last Thursday the excavation for the cellar was at last </p><p>begun. It was completed by that night, and Friday the masons were to </p><p>have come. Thursday night we had a tremendous deluge of rain, and </p><p>Friday morning I found my cellar a frog-pond and the walls quite </p><p>washed down. My daughter, who had come out to view the disaster with </p><p>me, called my attention to a corner of masonry laid bare by the</p><p>crumbling away of one of the walls. I cleared a little earth from it, </p><p>and, finding that it seemed part of a large mass, determined to </p><p>investigate it. The workmen I sent for unearthed an oblong vault some </p><p>eight feet below the surface, and set in the corner of what had </p><p>evidently been the foundation walls of an ancient house. A layer of </p><p>ashes and charcoal on the top of the vault showed that the house above </p><p>had perished by fire. The vault itself was perfectly intact, the </p><p>cement being as good as when first applied. It had a door, but this we </p><p>could not force, and found entrance by removing one of the flagstones </p><p>which formed the roof. The air which came up was stagnant but pure, </p><p>dry and not cold. Descending with a lantern, I found myself in an </p><p>apartment fitted up as a bedroom in the style of the nineteenth </p><p>century. On the bed lay a young man. That he was dead and must have </p><p>been dead a century was of course to be taken for granted; but the </p><p>extraordinary state of preservation of the body struck me and the </p><p>medical colleagues whom I had summoned with amazement. That the art of </p><p>such embalming as this had ever been known we should not have </p><p>believed, yet here seemed conclusive testimony that our immediate </p><p>ancestors had possessed it. My medical colleagues, whose curiosity was </p><p>highly excited, were at once for undertaking experiments to test the </p><p>nature of the process employed, but I withheld them. My motive in so </p><p>doing, at least the only motive I now need speak of, was the </p><p>recollection of something I once had read about the extent to which </p><p>your contemporaries had cultivated the subject of animal magnetism. It </p><p>had occurred to me as just conceivable that you might be in a trance, </p><p>and that the secret of your bodily integrity after so long a time was </p><p>not the craft of an embalmer, but life. So extremely fanciful did this </p><p>idea seem, even to me, that I did not risk the ridicule of my fellow </p><p>physicians by mentioning it, but gave some other reason for postponing </p><p>their experiments. No sooner, however, had they left me, than I set on </p><p>foot a systematic attempt at resuscitation, of which you know the </p><p>result." </p><p>Had its theme been yet more incredible, the circumstantiality of this </p><p>narrative, as well as the impressive manner and personality of the </p><p>narrator, might have staggered a listener, and I had begun to feel </p><p>very strangely, when, as he closed, I chanced to catch a glimpse of my </p><p>reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall of the room. I rose and </p><p>went up to it. The face I saw was the face to a hair and a line and </p><p>not a day older than the one I had looked at as I tied my cravat </p><p>before going to Edith that Decoration Day, which, as this man would </p><p>have me believe, was celebrated one hundred and thirteen years before. </p><p>At this, the colossal character of the fraud which was being attempted </p><p>on me, came over me afresh. Indignation mastered my mind as I realized </p><p>the outrageous liberty that had been taken. </p><p>"You are probably surprised," said my companion, "to see that, </p><p>although you are a century older than when you lay down to sleep in </p><p>that underground chamber, your appearance is unchanged. That should </p><p>not amaze you. It is by virtue of the total arrest of the vital </p><p>functions that you have survived this great period of time. If your </p><p>body could have undergone any change during your trance, it would long </p><p>ago have suffered dissolution." </p><p>"Sir," I replied, turning to him, "what your motive can be in reciting </p><p>to me with a serious face this remarkable farrago, I am utterly unable </p><p>to guess; but you are surely yourself too intelligent to suppose that </p><p>anybody but an imbecile could be deceived by it. Spare me any more of </p><p>this elaborate nonsense and once for all tell me whether you refuse to</p><p>give me an intelligible account of where I am and how I came here. If </p><p>so, I shall proceed to ascertain my whereabouts for myself, whoever </p><p>may hinder." </p><p>"You do not, then, believe that this is the year 2000?" </p><p>"Do you really think it necessary to ask me that?" I returned. </p><p>"Very well," replied my extraordinary host. "Since I cannot convince </p><p>you, you shall convince yourself. Are you strong enough to follow me </p><p>upstairs?" </p><p>"I am as strong as I ever was," I replied angrily, "as I may have to </p><p>prove if this jest is carried much farther." </p><p>"I beg, sir," was my companion's response, "that you will not allow </p><p>yourself to be too fully persuaded that you are the victim of a trick, </p><p>lest the reaction, when you are convinced of the truth of my </p><p>statements, should be too great." </p><p>The tone of concern, mingled with commiseration, with which he said </p><p>this, and the entire absence of any sign of resentment at my hot </p><p>words, strangely daunted me, and I followed him from the room with an </p><p>extraordinary mixture of emotions. He led the way up two flights of </p><p>stairs and then up a shorter one, which landed us upon a belvedere on </p><p>the house-top. "Be pleased to look around you," he said, as we reached </p><p>the platform, "and tell me if this is the Boston of the nineteenth </p><p>century." </p><p>At my feet lay a great city. Miles of broad streets, shaded by trees </p><p>and lined with fine buildings, for the most part not in continuous </p><p>blocks but set in larger or smaller inclosures, stretched in every </p><p>direction. Every quarter contained large open squares filled with </p><p>trees, among which statues glistened and fountains flashed in the late </p><p>afternoon sun. Public buildings of a colossal size and an </p><p>architectural grandeur unparalleled in my day raised their stately </p><p>piles on every side. Surely I had never seen this city nor one </p><p>comparable to it before. Raising my eyes at last towards the horizon, </p><p>I looked westward. That blue ribbon winding away to the sunset, was it </p><p>not the sinuous Charles? I looked east; Boston harbor stretched before </p><p>me within its headlands, not one of its green islets missing. </p><p>I knew then that I had been told the truth concerning the prodigious </p><p>thing which had befallen me. </p><p>CHAPTER IV. </p><p>I did not faint, but the effort to realize my position made me very </p><p>giddy, and I remember that my companion had to give me a strong arm as </p><p>he conducted me from the roof to a roomy apartment on the upper floor </p><p>of the house, where he insisted on my drinking a glass or two of good </p><p>wine and partaking of a light repast. </p><p>"I think you are going to be all right now," he said cheerily. "I </p><p>should not have taken so abrupt a means to convince you of your</p><p>position if your course, while perfectly excusable under the </p><p>circumstances, had not rather obliged me to do so. I confess," he </p><p>added laughing, "I was a little apprehensive at one time that I should </p><p>undergo what I believe you used to call a knockdown in the nineteenth </p><p>century, if I did not act rather promptly. I remembered that the </p><p>Bostonians of your day were famous pugilists, and thought best to lose </p><p>no time. I take it you are now ready to acquit me of the charge of </p><p>hoaxing you." </p><p>"If you had told me," I replied, profoundly awed, "that a thousand </p><p>years instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last looked on this </p><p>city, I should now believe you." </p><p>"Only a century has passed," he answered, "but many a millennium in </p><p>the world's history has seen changes less extraordinary." </p><p>"And now," he added, extending his hand with an air of irresistible </p><p>cordiality, "let me give you a hearty welcome to the Boston of the </p><p>twentieth century and to this house. My name is Leete, Dr. Leete they </p><p>call me." </p><p>"My name," I said as I shook his hand, "is Julian West." </p><p>"I am most happy in making your acquaintance, Mr. West," he responded. </p><p>"Seeing that this house is built on the site of your own, I hope you </p><p>will find it easy to make yourself at home in it." </p><p>After my refreshment Dr. Leete offered me a bath and a change of </p><p>clothing, of which I gladly availed myself. </p><p>It did not appear that any very startling revolution in men's attire </p><p>had been among the great changes my host had spoken of, for, barring a </p><p>few details, my new habiliments did not puzzle me at all. </p><p>Physically, I was now myself again. But mentally, how was it with me, </p><p>the reader will doubtless wonder. What were my intellectual </p><p>sensations, he may wish to know, on finding myself so suddenly dropped </p><p>as it were into a new world. In reply let me ask him to suppose </p><p>himself suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, transported from earth, </p><p>say, to Paradise or Hades. What does he fancy would be his own </p><p>experience? Would his thoughts return at once to the earth he had just </p><p>left, or would he, after the first shock, wellnigh forget his former </p><p>life for a while, albeit to be remembered later, in the interest </p><p>excited by his new surroundings? All I can say is, that if his </p><p>experience were at all like mine in the transition I am describing, </p><p>the latter hypothesis would prove the correct one. The impressions of </p><p>amazement and curiosity which my new surroundings produced occupied my </p><p>mind, after the first shock, to the exclusion of all other thoughts. </p><p>For the time the memory of my former life was, as it were, in </p><p>abeyance. </p><p>No sooner did I find myself physically rehabilitated through the kind </p><p>offices of my host, than I became eager to return to the house-top; </p><p>and presently we were comfortably established there in easy-chairs, </p><p>with the city beneath and around us. After Dr. Leete had responded to </p><p>numerous questions on my part, as to the ancient landmarks I missed </p><p>and the new ones which had replaced them, he asked me what point of </p><p>the contrast between the new and the old city struck me most forcibly. </p><p>"To speak of small things before great," I responded, "I really think </p><p>that the complete absence of chimneys and their smoke is the detail </p><p>that first impressed me." </p><p>"Ah!" ejaculated my companion with an air of much interest, "I had </p><p>forgotten the chimneys, it is so long since they went out of use. It </p><p>is nearly a century since the crude method of combustion on which you </p><p>depended for heat became obsolete." </p><p>"In general," I said, "what impresses me most about the city is the </p><p>material prosperity on the part of the people which its magnificence </p><p>implies." </p><p>"I would give a great deal for just one glimpse of the Boston of your </p><p>day," replied Dr. Leete. "No doubt, as you imply, the cities of that </p><p>period were rather shabby affairs. If you had the taste to make them </p><p>splendid, which I would not be so rude as to question, the general </p><p>poverty resulting from your extraordinary industrial system would not </p><p>have given you the means. Moreover, the excessive individualism which </p><p>then prevailed was inconsistent with much public spirit. What little </p><p>wealth you had seems almost wholly to have been lavished in private </p><p>luxury. Nowadays, on the contrary, there is no destination of the </p><p>surplus wealth so popular as the adornment of the city, which all </p><p>enjoy in equal degree." </p><p>The sun had been setting as we returned to the house-top, and as we </p><p>talked night descended upon the city. </p><p>"It is growing dark," said Dr. Leete. "Let us descend into the house; </p><p>I want to introduce my wife and daughter to you." </p><p>His words recalled to me the feminine voices which I had heard </p><p>whispering about me as I was coming back to conscious life; and, most </p><p>curious to learn what the ladies of the year 2000 were like, I </p><p>assented with alacrity to the proposition. The apartment in which we </p><p>found the wife and daughter of my host, as well as the entire interior </p><p>of the house, was filled with a mellow light, which I knew must be </p><p>artificial, although I could not discover the source from which it was </p><p>diffused. Mrs. Leete was an exceptionally fine looking and well </p><p>preserved woman of about her husband's age, while the daughter, who </p><p>was in the first blush of womanhood, was the most beautiful girl I had </p><p>ever seen. Her face was as bewitching as deep blue eyes, delicately </p><p>tinted complexion, and perfect features could make it, but even had </p><p>her countenance lacked special charms, the faultless luxuriance of her </p><p>figure would have given her place as a beauty among the women of the </p><p>nineteenth century. Feminine softness and delicacy were in this lovely </p><p>creature deliciously combined with an appearance of health and </p><p>abounding physical vitality too often lacking in the maidens with whom </p><p>alone I could compare her. It was a coincidence trifling in comparison </p><p>with the general strangeness of the situation, but still striking, </p><p>that her name should be Edith. </p><p>The evening that followed was certainly unique in the history of </p><p>social intercourse, but to suppose that our conversation was </p><p>peculiarly strained or difficult would be a great mistake. I believe </p><p>indeed that it is under what may be called unnatural, in the sense of </p><p>extraordinary, circumstances that people behave most naturally, for </p><p>the reason, no doubt, that such circumstances banish artificiality. I </p><p>know at any rate that my intercourse that evening with these</p><p>representatives of another age and world was marked by an ingenuous </p><p>sincerity and frankness such as but rarely crown long acquaintance. No </p><p>doubt the exquisite tact of my entertainers had much to do with this. </p><p>Of course there was nothing we could talk of but the strange </p><p>experience by virtue of which I was there, but they talked of it with </p><p>an interest so naive and direct in its expression as to relieve the </p><p>subject to a great degree of the element of the weird and the uncanny </p><p>which might so easily have been overpowering. One would have supposed </p><p>that they were quite in the habit of entertaining waifs from another </p><p>century, so perfect was their tact. </p><p>For my own part, never do I remember the operations of my mind to have </p><p>been more alert and acute than that evening, or my intellectual </p><p>sensibilities more keen. Of course I do not mean that the </p><p>consciousness of my amazing situation was for a moment out of mind, </p><p>but its chief effect thus far was to produce a feverish elation, a </p><p>sort of mental intoxication.[1] </p><p>Edith Leete took little part in the conversation, but when several </p><p>times the magnetism of her beauty drew my glance to her face, I found </p><p>her eyes fixed on me with an absorbed intensity, almost like </p><p>fascination. It was evident that I had excited her interest to an </p><p>extraordinary degree, as was not astonishing, supposing her to be a </p><p>girl of imagination. Though I supposed curiosity was the chief motive </p><p>of her interest, it could but affect me as it would not have done had </p><p>she been less beautiful. </p><p>Dr. Leete, as well as the ladies, seemed greatly interested in my </p><p>account of the circumstances under which I had gone to sleep in the </p><p>underground chamber. All had suggestions to offer to account for my </p><p>having been forgotten there, and the theory which we finally agreed on </p><p>offers at least a plausible explanation, although whether it be in its </p><p>details the true one, nobody, of course, will ever know. The layer of </p><p>ashes found above the chamber indicated that the house had been burned </p><p>down. Let it be supposed that the conflagration had taken place the </p><p>night I fell asleep. It only remains to assume that Sawyer lost his </p><p>life in the fire or by some accident connected with it, and the rest </p><p>follows naturally enough. No one but he and Dr. Pillsbury either knew </p><p>of the existence of the chamber or that I was in it, and Dr. </p><p>Pillsbury, who had gone that night to New Orleans, had probably never </p><p>heard of the fire at all. The conclusion of my friends, and of the </p><p>public, must have been that I had perished in the flames. An </p><p>excavation of the ruins, unless thorough, would not have disclosed the </p><p>recess in the foundation walls connecting with my chamber. To be sure, </p><p>if the site had been again built upon, at least immediately, such an </p><p>excavation would have been necessary, but the troublous times and the </p><p>undesirable character of the locality might well have prevented </p><p>rebuilding. The size of the trees in the garden now occupying the site </p><p>indicated, Dr. Leete said, that for more than half a century at least </p><p>it had been open ground. </p><p>[Footnote 1: In accounting for this state of mind it must be </p><p>remembered that, except for the topic of our conversations, there was </p><p>in my surroundings next to nothing to suggest what had befallen me. </p><p>Within a block of my home in the old Boston I could have found social </p><p>circles vastly more foreign to me. The speech of the Bostonians of the </p><p>twentieth century differs even less from that of their cultured </p><p>ancestors of the nineteenth than did that of the latter from the </p><p>language of Washington and Franklin, while the differences between the</p><p>style of dress and furniture of the two epochs are not more marked </p><p>than I have known fashion to make in the time of one generation.] </p><p>CHAPTER V. </p><p>When, in the course of the evening the ladies retired, leaving Dr. </p><p>Leete and myself alone, he sounded me as to my disposition for sleep, </p><p>saying that if I felt like it my bed was ready for me; but if I was </p><p>inclined to wakefulness nothing would please him better than to bear </p><p>me company. "I am a late bird, myself," he said, "and, without </p><p>suspicion of flattery, I may say that a companion more interesting </p><p>than yourself could scarcely be imagined. It is decidedly not often </p><p>that one has a chance to converse with a man of the nineteenth </p><p>century." </p><p>Now I had been looking forward all the evening with some dread to the </p><p>time when I should be alone, on retiring for the night. Surrounded by </p><p>these most friendly strangers, stimulated and supported by their </p><p>sympathetic interest, I had been able to keep my mental balance. Even </p><p>then, however, in pauses of the conversation I had had glimpses, vivid </p><p>as lightning flashes, of the horror of strangeness that was waiting to </p><p>be faced when I could no longer command diversion. I knew I could not </p><p>sleep that night, and as for lying awake and thinking, it argues no </p><p>cowardice, I am sure, to confess that I was afraid of it. When, in </p><p>reply to my host's question, I frankly told him this, he replied that </p><p>it would be strange if I did not feel just so, but that I need have no </p><p>anxiety about sleeping; whenever I wanted to go to bed, he would give </p><p>me a dose which would insure me a sound night's sleep without fail. </p><p>Next morning, no doubt, I would awake with the feeling of an old </p><p>citizen. </p><p>"Before I acquire that," I replied, "I must know a little more about </p><p>the sort of Boston I have come back to. You told me when we were upon </p><p>the house-top that though a century only had elapsed since I fell </p><p>asleep, it had been marked by greater changes in the conditions of </p><p>humanity than many a previous millennium. With the city before me I </p><p>could well believe that, but I am very curious to know what some of </p><p>the changes have been. To make a beginning somewhere, for the subject </p><p>is doubtless a large one, what solution, if any, have you found for </p><p>the labor question? It was the Sphinx's riddle of the nineteenth </p><p>century, and when I dropped out the Sphinx was threatening to devour </p><p>society, because the answer was not forthcoming. It is well worth </p><p>sleeping a hundred years to learn what the right answer was, if, </p><p>indeed, you have found it yet." </p><p>"As no such thing as the labor question is known nowadays," replied </p><p>Dr. Leete, "and there is no way in which it could arise, I suppose we </p><p>may claim to have solved it. Society would indeed have fully deserved </p><p>being devoured if it had failed to answer a riddle so entirely simple. </p><p>In fact, to speak by the book, it was not necessary for society to </p><p>solve the riddle at all. It may be said to have solved itself. The </p><p>solution came as the result of a process of industrial evolution which </p><p>could not have terminated otherwise. All that society had to do was to </p><p>recognize and co�perate with that evolution, when its tendency had </p><p>become unmistakable."</p><p>"I can only say," I answered, "that at the time I fell asleep no such </p><p>evolution had been recognized." </p><p>"It was in 1887 that you fell into this sleep, I think you said." </p><p>"Yes, May 30th, 1887." </p><p>My companion regarded me musingly for some moments. Then he observed, </p><p>"And you tell me that even then there was no general recognition of </p><p>the nature of the crisis which society was nearing? Of course, I fully </p><p>credit your statement. The singular blindness of your contemporaries </p><p>to the signs of the times is a phenomenon commented on by many of our </p><p>historians, but few facts of history are more difficult for us to </p><p>realize, so obvious and unmistakable as we look back seem the </p><p>indications, which must also have come under your eyes, of the </p><p>transformation about to come to pass. I should be interested, Mr. </p><p>West, if you would give me a little more definite idea of the view </p><p>which you and men of your grade of intellect took of the state and </p><p>prospects of society in 1887. You must, at least, have realized that </p><p>the widespread industrial and social troubles, and the underlying </p><p>dissatisfaction of all classes with the inequalities of society, and </p><p>the general misery of mankind, were portents of great changes of some </p><p>sort." </p><p>"We did, indeed, fully realize that," I replied. "We felt that society </p><p>was dragging anchor and in danger of going adrift. Whither it would </p><p>drift nobody could say, but all feared the rocks." </p><p>"Nevertheless," said Dr. Leete, "the set of the current was perfectly </p><p>perceptible if you had but taken pains to observe it, and it was not </p><p>toward the rocks, but toward a deeper channel." </p><p>"We had a popular proverb," I replied, "that 'hindsight is better than </p><p>foresight,' the force of which I shall now, no doubt, appreciate more </p><p>fully than ever. All I can say is, that the prospect was such when I </p><p>went into that long sleep that I should not have been surprised had I </p><p>looked down from your house-top to-day on a heap of charred and </p><p>moss-grown ruins instead of this glorious city." </p><p>Dr. Leete had listened to me with close attention and nodded </p><p>thoughtfully as I finished speaking. "What you have said," he </p><p>observed, "will be regarded as a most valuable vindication of Storiot, </p><p>whose account of your era has been generally thought exaggerated in </p><p>its picture of the gloom and confusion of men's minds. That a period </p><p>of transition like that should be full of excitement and agitation was </p><p>indeed to be looked for; but seeing how plain was the tendency of the </p><p>forces in operation, it was natural to believe that hope rather than </p><p>fear would have been the prevailing temper of the popular mind." </p><p>"You have not yet told me what was the answer to the riddle which you </p><p>found," I said. "I am impatient to know by what contradiction of </p><p>natural sequence the peace and prosperity which you now seem to enjoy </p><p>could have been the outcome of an era like my own." </p><p>"Excuse me," replied my host, "but do you smoke?" It was not till our </p><p>cigars were lighted and drawing well that he resumed. "Since you are </p><p>in the humor to talk rather than to sleep, as I certainly am, perhaps </p><p>I cannot do better than to try to give you enough idea of our modern</p><p>industrial system to dissipate at least the impression that there is </p><p>any mystery about the process of its evolution. The Bostonians of your </p><p>day had the reputation of being great askers of questions, and I am </p><p>going to show my descent by asking you one to begin with. What should </p><p>you name as the most prominent feature of the labor troubles of your </p><p>day?" </p><p>"Why, the strikes, of course," I replied. </p><p>"Exactly; but what made the strikes so formidable?" </p><p>"The great labor organizations." </p><p>"And what was the motive of these great organizations?" </p><p>"The workmen claimed they had to organize to get their rights from the </p><p>big corporations," I replied. </p><p>"That is just it," said Dr. Leete; "the organization of labor and the </p><p>strikes were an effect, merely, of the concentration of capital in </p><p>greater masses than had ever been known before. Before this </p><p>concentration began, while as yet commerce and industry were conducted </p><p>by innumerable petty concerns with small capital, instead of a small </p><p>number of great concerns with vast capital, the individual workman was </p><p>relatively important and independent in his relations to the employer. </p><p>Moreover, when a little capital or a new idea was enough to start a </p><p>man in business for himself, workingmen were constantly becoming </p><p>employers and there was no hard and fast line between the two classes. </p><p>Labor unions were needless then, and general strikes out of the </p><p>question. But when the era of small concerns with small capital was </p><p>succeeded by that of the great aggregations of capital, all this was </p><p>changed. The individual laborer, who had been relatively important to </p><p>the small employer, was reduced to insignificance and powerlessness </p><p>over against the great corporation, while at the same time the way </p><p>upward to the grade of employer was closed to him. Self-defense drove </p><p>him to union with his fellows. </p><p>"The records of the period show that the outcry against the </p><p>concentration of capital was furious. Men believed that it threatened </p><p>society with a form of tyranny more abhorrent than it had ever </p><p>endured. They believed that the great corporations were preparing for </p><p>them the yoke of a baser servitude than had ever been imposed on the </p><p>race, servitude not to men but to soulless machines incapable of any </p><p>motive but insatiable greed. Looking back, we cannot wonder at their </p><p>desperation, for certainly humanity was never confronted with a fate </p><p>more sordid and hideous than would have been the era of corporate </p><p>tyranny which they anticipated. </p><p>"Meanwhile, without being in the smallest degree checked by the clamor </p><p>against it, the absorption of business by ever larger monopolies </p><p>continued. In the United States there was not, after the beginning of </p><p>the last quarter of the century, any opportunity whatever for </p><p>individual enterprise in any important field of industry, unless </p><p>backed by a great capital. During the last decade of the century, such </p><p>small businesses as still remained were fast-failing survivals of a </p><p>past epoch, or mere parasites on the great corporations, or else </p><p>existed in fields too small to attract the great capitalists. Small </p><p>businesses, as far as they still remained, were reduced to the </p><p>condition of rats and mice, living in holes and corners, and counting</p><p>on evading notice for the enjoyment of existence. The railroads had </p><p>gone on combining till a few great syndicates controlled every rail in </p><p>the land. In manufactories, every important staple was controlled by a </p><p>syndicate. These syndicates, pools, trusts, or whatever their name, </p><p>fixed prices and crushed all competition except when combinations as </p><p>vast as themselves arose. Then a struggle, resulting in a still </p><p>greater consolidation, ensued. The great city bazar crushed its </p><p>country rivals with branch stores, and in the city itself absorbed its </p><p>smaller rivals till the business of a whole quarter was concentrated </p><p>under one roof, with a hundred former proprietors of shops serving as </p><p>clerks. Having no business of his own to put his money in, the small </p><p>capitalist, at the same time that he took service under the </p><p>corporation, found no other investment for his money but its stocks </p><p>and bonds, thus becoming doubly dependent upon it. </p><p>"The fact that the desperate popular opposition to the consolidation </p><p>of business in a few powerful hands had no effect to check it proves </p><p>that there must have been a strong economical reason for it. The small </p><p>capitalists, with their innumerable petty concerns, had in fact </p><p>yielded the field to the great aggregations of capital, because they </p><p>belonged to a day of small things and were totally incompetent to the </p><p>demands of an age of steam and telegraphs and the gigantic scale of </p><p>its enterprises. To restore the former order of things, even if </p><p>possible, would have involved returning to the day of stage-coaches. </p><p>Oppressive and intolerable as was the r�gime of the great </p><p>consolidations of capital, even its victims, while they cursed it, </p><p>were forced to admit the prodigious increase of efficiency which had </p><p>been imparted to the national industries, the vast economies effected </p><p>by concentration of management and unity of organization, and to </p><p>confess that since the new system had taken the place of the old the </p><p>wealth of the world had increased at a rate before undreamed of. To be </p><p>sure this vast increase had gone chiefly to make the rich richer, </p><p>increasing the gap between them and the poor; but the fact remained </p><p>that, as a means merely of producing wealth, capital had been proved </p><p>efficient in proportion to its consolidation. The restoration of the </p><p>old system with the subdivision of capital, if it were possible, might </p><p>indeed bring back a greater equality of conditions, with more </p><p>individual dignity and freedom, but it would be at the price of </p><p>general poverty and the arrest of material progress. </p><p>"Was there, then, no way of commanding the services of the mighty </p><p>wealth-producing principle of consolidated capital without bowing down </p><p>to a plutocracy like that of Carthage? As soon as men began to ask </p><p>themselves these questions, they found the answer ready for them. The </p><p>movement toward the conduct of business by larger and larger </p><p>aggregations of capital, the tendency toward monopolies, which had </p><p>been so desperately and vainly resisted, was recognized at last, in </p><p>its true significance, as a process which only needed to complete its </p><p>logical evolution to open a golden future to humanity. </p><p>"Early in the last century the evolution was completed by the final </p><p>consolidation of the entire capital of the nation. The industry and </p><p>commerce of the country, ceasing to be conducted by a set of </p><p>irresponsible corporations and syndicates of private persons at their </p><p>caprice and for their profit, were intrusted to a single syndicate </p><p>representing the people, to be conducted in the common interest for </p><p>the common profit. The nation, that is to say, organized as the one </p><p>great business corporation in which all other corporations were </p><p>absorbed; it became the one capitalist in the place of all other</p><p>capitalists, the sole employer, the final monopoly in which all </p><p>previous and lesser monopolies were swallowed up, a monopoly in the </p><p>profits and economies of which all citizens shared. The epoch of </p><p>trusts had ended in The Great Trust. In a word, the people of the </p><p>United States concluded to assume the conduct of their own business, </p><p>just as one hundred odd years before they had assumed the conduct of </p><p>their own government, organizing now for industrial purposes on </p><p>precisely the same grounds that they had then organized for political </p><p>purposes. At last, strangely late in the world's history, the obvious </p><p>fact was perceived that no business is so essentially the public </p><p>business as the industry and commerce on which the people's livelihood </p><p>depends, and that to entrust it to private persons to be managed for </p><p>private profit is a folly similar in kind, though vastly greater in </p><p>magnitude, to that of surrendering the functions of political </p><p>government to kings and nobles to be conducted for their personal </p><p>glorification." </p><p>"Such a stupendous change as you describe," said I, "did not, of </p><p>course, take place without great bloodshed and terrible convulsions." </p><p>"On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there was absolutely no </p><p>violence. The change had been long foreseen. Public opinion had become </p><p>fully ripe for it, and the whole mass of the people was behind it. </p><p>There was no more possibility of opposing it by force than by </p><p>argument. On the other hand the popular sentiment toward the great </p><p>corporations and those identified with them had ceased to be one of </p><p>bitterness, as they came to realize their necessity as a link, a </p><p>transition phase, in the evolution of the true industrial system. The </p><p>most violent foes of the great private monopolies were now forced to </p><p>recognize how invaluable and indispensable had been their office in </p><p>educating the people up to the point of assuming control of their own </p><p>business. Fifty years before, the consolidation of the industries of </p><p>the country under national control would have seemed a very daring </p><p>experiment to the most sanguine. But by a series of object lessons, </p><p>seen and studied by all men, the great corporations had taught the </p><p>people an entirely new set of ideas on this subject. They had seen for </p><p>many years syndicates handling revenues greater than those of states, </p><p>and directing the labors of hundreds of thousands of men with an </p><p>efficiency and economy unattainable in smaller operations. It had come </p><p>to be recognized as an axiom that the larger the business the simpler </p><p>the principles that can be applied to it; that, as the machine is </p><p>truer than the hand, so the system, which in a great concern does the </p><p>work of the master's eye in a small business, turns out more accurate </p><p>results. Thus it came about that, thanks to the corporations </p><p>themselves, when it was proposed that the nation should assume their </p><p>functions, the suggestion implied nothing which seemed impracticable </p><p>even to the timid. To be sure it was a step beyond any yet taken, a </p><p>broader generalization, but the very fact that the nation would be the </p><p>sole corporation in the field would, it was seen, relieve the </p><p>undertaking of many difficulties with which the partial monopolies had </p><p>contended." </p><p>CHAPTER VI. </p><p>Dr. Leete ceased speaking, and I remained silent, endeavoring to form</p><p>some general conception of the changes in the arrangements of society </p><p>implied in the tremendous revolution which he had described. </p><p>Finally I said, "The idea of such an extension of the functions of </p><p>government is, to say the least, rather overwhelming." </p><p>"Extension!" he repeated, "where is the extension?" </p><p>"In my day," I replied, "it was considered that the proper functions </p><p>of government, strictly speaking, were limited to keeping the peace </p><p>and defending the people against the public enemy, that is, to the </p><p>military and police powers." </p><p>"And, in heaven's name, who are the public enemies?" exclaimed Dr. </p><p>Leete. "Are they France, England, Germany, or hunger, cold, and </p><p>nakedness? In your day governments were accustomed, on the slightest </p><p>international misunderstanding, to seize upon the bodies of citizens </p><p>and deliver them over by hundreds of thousands to death and </p><p>mutilation, wasting their treasures the while like water; and all this </p><p>oftenest for no imaginable profit to the victims. We have no wars </p><p>now, and our governments no war powers, but in order to protect every </p><p>citizen against hunger, cold, and nakedness, and provide for all his </p><p>physical and mental needs, the function is assumed of directing his </p><p>industry for a term of years. No, Mr. West, I am sure on reflection </p><p>you will perceive that it was in your age, not in ours, that the </p><p>extension of the functions of governments was extraordinary. Not even </p><p>for the best ends would men now allow their governments such powers as </p><p>were then used for the most maleficent." </p><p>"Leaving comparisons aside," I said, "the demagoguery and corruption </p><p>of our public men would have been considered, in my day, insuperable </p><p>objections to any assumption by government of the charge of the </p><p>national industries. We should have thought that no arrangement could </p><p>be worse than to entrust the politicians with control of the </p><p>wealth-producing machinery of the country. Its material interests were </p><p>quite too much the football of parties as it was." </p><p>"No doubt you were right," rejoined Dr. Leete, "but all that is </p><p>changed now. We have no parties or politicians, and as for demagoguery </p><p>and corruption, they are words having only an historical </p><p>significance." </p><p>"Human nature itself must have changed very much," I said. </p><p>"Not at all," was Dr. Leete's reply, "but the conditions of human </p><p>life have changed, and with them the motives of human action. The </p><p>organization of society with you was such that officials were under a </p><p>constant temptation to misuse their power for the private profit of </p><p>themselves or others. Under such circumstances it seems almost strange </p><p>that you dared entrust them with any of your affairs. Nowadays, on the </p><p>contrary, society is so constituted that there is absolutely no way in </p><p>which an official, however ill-disposed, could possibly make any </p><p>profit for himself or any one else by a misuse of his power. Let him </p><p>be as bad an official as you please, he cannot be a corrupt one. There </p><p>is no motive to be. The social system no longer offers a premium on </p><p>dishonesty. But these are matters which you can only understand as you </p><p>come, with time, to know us better." </p><p>"But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labor problem.</p><p>It is the problem of capital which we have been discussing," I said. </p><p>"After the nation had assumed conduct of the mills, machinery, </p><p>railroads, farms, mines, and capital in general of the country, the </p><p>labor question still remained. In assuming the responsibilities of </p><p>capital the nation had assumed the difficulties of the capitalist's </p><p>position." </p><p>"The moment the nation assumed the responsibilities of capital those </p><p>difficulties vanished," replied Dr. Leete. "The national organization </p><p>of labor under one direction was the complete solution of what was, </p><p>in your day and under your system, justly regarded as the insoluble </p><p>labor problem. When the nation became the sole employer, all the </p><p>citizens, by virtue of their citizenship, became employees, to be </p><p>distributed according to the needs of industry." </p><p>"That is," I suggested, "you have simply applied the principle of </p><p>universal military service, as it was understood in our day, to the </p><p>labor question." </p><p>"Yes," said Dr. Leete, "that was something which followed as a matter </p><p>of course as soon as the nation had become the sole capitalist. The </p><p>people were already accustomed to the idea that the obligation of </p><p>every citizen, not physically disabled, to contribute his military </p><p>services to the defense of the nation was equal and absolute. That it </p><p>was equally the duty of every citizen to contribute his quota of </p><p>industrial or intellectual services to the maintenance of the nation </p><p>was equally evident, though it was not until the nation became the </p><p>employer of labor that citizens were able to render this sort of </p><p>service with any pretense either of universality or equity. No </p><p>organization of labor was possible when the employing power was </p><p>divided among hundreds or thousands of individuals and corporations, </p><p>between which concert of any kind was neither desired, nor indeed </p><p>feasible. It constantly happened then that vast numbers who desired to </p><p>labor could find no opportunity, and on the other hand, those who </p><p>desired to evade a part or all of their debt could easily do so." </p><p>"Service, now, I suppose, is compulsory upon all," I suggested. </p><p>"It is rather a matter of course than of compulsion," replied Dr. </p><p>Leete. "It is regarded as so absolutely natural and reasonable that </p><p>the idea of its being compulsory has ceased to be thought of. He would </p><p>be thought to be an incredibly contemptible person who should need </p><p>compulsion in such a case. Nevertheless, to speak of service being </p><p>compulsory would be a weak way to state its absolute inevitableness. </p><p>Our entire social order is so wholly based upon and deduced from it </p><p>that if it were conceivable that a man could escape it, he would be </p><p>left with no possible way to provide for his existence. He would have </p><p>excluded himself from the world, cut himself off from his kind, in a </p><p>word, committed suicide." </p><p>"Is the term of service in this industrial army for life?" </p><p>"Oh, no; it both begins later and ends earlier than the average </p><p>working period in your day. Your workshops were filled with children </p><p>and old men, but we hold the period of youth sacred to education, and </p><p>the period of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag, </p><p>equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation. The period of </p><p>industrial service is twenty-four years, beginning at the close of </p><p>the course of education at twenty-one and terminating at forty-five.</p><p>After forty-five, while discharged from labor, the citizen still </p><p>remains liable to special calls, in case of emergencies causing a </p><p>sudden great increase in the demand for labor, till he reaches the age </p><p>of fifty-five, but such calls are rarely, in fact almost never, made. </p><p>The fifteenth day of October of every year is what we call Muster Day, </p><p>because those who have reached the age of twenty-one are then mustered </p><p>into the industrial service, and at the same time those who, after </p><p>twenty-four years' service, have reached the age of forty-five, are </p><p>honorably mustered out. It is the great day of the year with us, </p><p>whence we reckon all other events, our Olympiad, save that it is </p><p>annual." </p><p>CHAPTER VII. </p><p>"It is after you have mustered your industrial army into service," I </p><p>said, "that I should expect the chief difficulty to arise, for there </p><p>its analogy with a military army must cease. Soldiers have all the </p><p>same thing, and a very simple thing, to do, namely, to practice the </p><p>manual of arms, to march and stand guard. But the industrial army must </p><p>learn and follow two or three hundred diverse trades and avocations. </p><p>What administrative talent can be equal to determining wisely what </p><p>trade or business every individual in a great nation shall pursue?" </p><p>"The administration has nothing to do with determining that point." </p><p>"Who does determine it, then?" I asked. </p><p>"Every man for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude, the </p><p>utmost pains being taken to enable him to find out what his natural </p><p>aptitude really is. The principle on which our industrial army is </p><p>organized is that a man's natural endowments, mental and physical, </p><p>determine what he can work at most profitably to the nation and most </p><p>satisfactorily to himself. While the obligation of service in some </p><p>form is not to be evaded, voluntary election, subject only to </p><p>necessary regulation, is depended on to determine the particular sort </p><p>of service every man is to render. As an individual's satisfaction </p><p>during his term of service depends on his having an occupation to his </p><p>taste, parents and teachers watch from early years for indications of </p><p>special aptitudes in children. A thorough study of the National </p><p>industrial system, with the history and rudiments of all the great </p><p>trades, is an essential part of our educational system. While manual </p><p>training is not allowed to encroach on the general intellectual </p><p>culture to which our schools are devoted, it is carried far enough to </p><p>give our youth, in addition to their theoretical knowledge of the </p><p>national industries, mechanical and agricultural, a certain </p><p>familiarity with their tools and methods. Our schools are constantly </p><p>visiting our workshops, and often are taken on long excursions to </p><p>inspect particular industrial enterprises. In your day a man was not </p><p>ashamed to be grossly ignorant of all trades except his own, but such </p><p>ignorance would not be consistent with our idea of placing every one </p><p>in a position to select intelligently the occupation for which he has </p><p>most taste. Usually long before he is mustered into service a young </p><p>man has found out the pursuit he wants to follow, has acquired a great </p><p>deal of knowledge about it, and is waiting impatiently the time when </p><p>he can enlist in its ranks."</p><p>"Surely," I said, "it can hardly be that the number of volunteers for </p><p>any trade is exactly the number needed in that trade. It must be </p><p>generally either under or over the demand." </p><p>"The supply of volunteers is always expected to fully equal the </p><p>demand," replied Dr. Leete. "It is the business of the administration </p><p>to see that this is the case. The rate of volunteering for each trade </p><p>is closely watched. If there be a noticeably greater excess of </p><p>volunteers over men needed in any trade, it is inferred that the trade </p><p>offers greater attractions than others. On the other hand, if the </p><p>number of volunteers for a trade tends to drop below the demand, it is </p><p>inferred that it is thought more arduous. It is the business of the </p><p>administration to seek constantly to equalize the attractions of the </p><p>trades, so far as the conditions of labor in them are concerned, so </p><p>that all trades shall be equally attractive to persons having natural </p><p>tastes for them. This is done by making the hours of labor in </p><p>different trades to differ according to their arduousness. The lighter </p><p>trades, prosecuted under the most agreeable circumstances, have in </p><p>this way the longest hours, while an arduous trade, such as mining, </p><p>has very short hours. There is no theory, no _a priori_ rule, by which </p><p>the respective attractiveness of industries is determined. The </p><p>administration, in taking burdens off one class of workers and adding </p><p>them to other classes, simply follows the fluctuations of opinion </p><p>among the workers themselves as indicated by the rate of </p><p>volunteering. The principle is that no man's work ought to be, on the </p><p>whole, harder for him than any other man's for him, the workers </p><p>themselves to be the judges. There are no limits to the application of </p><p>this rule. If any particular occupation is in itself so arduous or so </p><p>oppressive that, in order to induce volunteers, the day's work in it </p><p>had to be reduced to ten minutes, it would be done. If, even then, no </p><p>man was willing to do it, it would remain undone. But of course, in </p><p>point of fact, a moderate reduction in the hours of labor, or addition </p><p>of other privileges, suffices to secure all needed volunteers for any </p><p>occupation necessary to men. If, indeed, the unavoidable difficulties </p><p>and dangers of such a necessary pursuit were so great that no </p><p>inducement of compensating advantages would overcome men's repugnance </p><p>to it, the administration would only need to take it out of the common </p><p>order of occupations by declaring it 'extra hazardous,' and those who </p><p>pursued it especially worthy of the national gratitude, to be overrun </p><p>with volunteers. Our young men are very greedy of honor, and do not </p><p>let slip such opportunities. Of course you will see that dependence on </p><p>the purely voluntary choice of avocations involves the abolition in </p><p>all of anything like unhygienic conditions or special peril to life </p><p>and limb. Health and safety are conditions common to all industries. </p><p>The nation does not maim and slaughter its workmen by thousands, as </p><p>did the private capitalists and corporations of your day." </p><p>"When there are more who want to enter a particular trade than there </p><p>is room for, how do you decide between the applicants?" I inquired. </p><p>"Preference is given to those who have acquired the most knowledge of </p><p>the trade they wish to follow. No man, however, who through successive </p><p>years remains persistent in his desire to show what he can do at any </p><p>particular trade, is in the end denied an opportunity. Meanwhile, if a </p><p>man cannot at first win entrance into the business he prefers, he has </p><p>usually one or more alternative preferences, pursuits for which he has </p><p>some degree of aptitude, although not the highest. Every one, indeed, </p><p>is expected to study his aptitudes so as to have not only a first</p><p>choice as to occupation, but a second or third, so that if, either at </p><p>the outset of his career or subsequently, owing to the progress of </p><p>invention or changes in demand, he is unable to follow his first </p><p>vocation, he can still find reasonably congenial employment. This </p><p>principle of secondary choices as to occupation is quite important in </p><p>our system. I should add, in reference to the counter-possibility of </p><p>some sudden failure of volunteers in a particular trade, or some </p><p>sudden necessity of an increased force, that the administration, while </p><p>depending on the voluntary system for filling up the trades as a rule, </p><p>holds always in reserve the power to call for special volunteers, or </p><p>draft any force needed from any quarter. Generally, however, all needs </p><p>of this sort can be met by details from the class of unskilled or </p><p>common laborers." </p><p>"How is this class of common laborers recruited?" I asked. "Surely </p><p>nobody voluntarily enters that." </p><p>"It is the grade to which all new recruits belong for the first three </p><p>years of their service. It is not till after this period, during which </p><p>he is assignable to any work at the discretion of his superiors, that </p><p>the young man is allowed to elect a special avocation. These three </p><p>years of stringent discipline none are exempt from, and very glad our </p><p>young men are to pass from this severe school into the comparative </p><p>liberty of the trades. If a man were so stupid as to have no choice as </p><p>to occupation, he would simply remain a common laborer; but such </p><p>cases, as you may suppose, are not common." </p><p>"Having once elected and entered on a trade or occupation," I </p><p>remarked, "I suppose he has to stick to it the rest of his life." </p><p>"Not necessarily," replied Dr. Leete; "while frequent and merely </p><p>capricious changes of occupation are not encouraged or even permitted, </p><p>every worker is allowed, of course, under certain regulations and in </p><p>accordance with the exigencies of the service, to volunteer for </p><p>another industry which he thinks would suit him better than his first </p><p>choice. In this case his application is received just as if he were </p><p>volunteering for the first time, and on the same terms. Not only </p><p>this, but a worker may likewise, under suitable regulations and not </p><p>too frequently, obtain a transfer to an establishment of the same </p><p>industry in another part of the country which for any reason he may </p><p>prefer. Under your system a discontented man could indeed leave his </p><p>work at will, but he left his means of support at the same time, and </p><p>took his chances as to future livelihood. We find that the number of </p><p>men who wish to abandon an accustomed occupation for a new one, and </p><p>old friends and associations for strange ones, is small. It is only </p><p>the poorer sort of workmen who desire to change even as frequently as </p><p>our regulations permit. Of course transfers or discharges, when health </p><p>demands them, are always given." </p><p>"As an industrial system, I should think this might be extremely </p><p>efficient," I said, "but I don't see that it makes any provision for </p><p>the professional classes, the men who serve the nation with brains </p><p>instead of hands. Of course you can't get along without the </p><p>brain-workers. How, then, are they selected from those who are to </p><p>serve as farmers and mechanics? That must require a very delicate sort </p><p>of sifting process, I should say." </p><p>"So it does," replied Dr. Leete; "the most delicate possible test is </p><p>needed here, and so we leave the question whether a man shall be a</p><p>brain or hand worker entirely to him to settle. At the end of the term </p><p>of three years as a common laborer, which every man must serve, it is </p><p>for him to choose, in accordance to his natural tastes, whether he </p><p>will fit himself for an art or profession, or be a farmer or mechanic. </p><p>If he feels that he can do better work with his brains than his </p><p>muscles, he finds every facility provided for testing the reality of </p><p>his supposed bent, of cultivating it, and if fit of pursuing it as his </p><p>avocation. The schools of technology, of medicine, of art, of music, </p><p>of histrionics, and of higher liberal learning are always open to </p><p>aspirants without condition." </p><p>"Are not the schools flooded with young men whose only motive is to </p><p>avoid work?" </p><p>Dr. Leete smiled a little grimly. </p><p>"No one is at all likely to enter the professional schools for the </p><p>purpose of avoiding work, I assure you," he said. "They are intended </p><p>for those with special aptitude for the branches they teach, and any </p><p>one without it would find it easier to do double hours at his trade </p><p>than try to keep up with the classes. Of course many honestly mistake </p><p>their vocation, and, finding themselves unequal to the requirements of </p><p>the schools, drop out and return to the industrial service; no </p><p>discredit attaches to such persons, for the public policy is to </p><p>encourage all to develop suspected talents which only actual tests can </p><p>prove the reality of. The professional and scientific schools of your </p><p>day depended on the patronage of their pupils for support, and the </p><p>practice appears to have been common of giving diplomas to unfit </p><p>persons, who afterwards found their way into the professions. Our </p><p>schools are national institutions, and to have passed their tests is a </p><p>proof of special abilities not to be questioned. </p><p>"This opportunity for a professional training," the doctor continued, </p><p>"remains open to every man till the age of thirty is reached, after </p><p>which students are not received, as there would remain too brief a </p><p>period before the age of discharge in which to serve the nation in </p><p>their professions. In your day young men had to choose their </p><p>professions very young, and therefore, in a large proportion of </p><p>instances, wholly mistook their vocations. It is recognized nowadays </p><p>that the natural aptitudes of some are later than those of others in </p><p>developing, and therefore, while the choice of profession may be made </p><p>as early as twenty-four, it remains open for six years longer." </p><p>A question which had a dozen times before been on my lips now found </p><p>utterance, a question which touched upon what, in my time, had been </p><p>regarded the most vital difficulty in the way of any final settlement </p><p>of the industrial problem. "It is an extraordinary thing," I said, </p><p>"that you should not yet have said a word about the method of </p><p>adjusting wages. Since the nation is the sole employer, the government </p><p>must fix the rate of wages and determine just how much everybody shall </p><p>earn, from the doctors to the diggers. All I can say is, that this </p><p>plan would never have worked with us, and I don't see how it can now </p><p>unless human nature has changed. In my day, nobody was satisfied with </p><p>his wages or salary. Even if he felt he received enough, he was sure </p><p>his neighbor had too much, which was as bad. If the universal </p><p>discontent on this subject, instead of being dissipated in curses and </p><p>strikes directed against innumerable employers, could have been </p><p>concentrated upon one, and that the government, the strongest ever </p><p>devised would not have seen two pay days."</p><p>Dr. Leete laughed heartily. </p><p>"Very true, very true," he said, "a general strike would most probably </p><p>have followed the first pay day, and a strike directed against a </p><p>government is a revolution." </p><p>"How, then, do you avoid a revolution every pay day?" I demanded. "Has </p><p>some prodigious philosopher devised a new system of calculus </p><p>satisfactory to all for determining the exact and comparative value of </p><p>all sorts of service, whether by brawn or brain, by hand or voice, by </p><p>ear or eye? Or has human nature itself changed, so that no man looks </p><p>upon his own things but 'every man on the things of his neighbor?' One </p><p>or the other of these events must be the explanation." </p><p>"Neither one nor the other, however, is," was my host's laughing </p><p>response. "And now, Mr. West," he continued, "you must remember that </p><p>you are my patient as well as my guest, and permit me to prescribe </p><p>sleep for you before we have any more conversation. It is after three </p><p>o'clock." </p><p>"The prescription is, no doubt, a wise one," I said; "I only hope it </p><p>can be filled." </p><p>"I will see to that," the doctor replied, and he did, for he gave me a </p><p>wineglass of something or other which sent me to sleep as soon as my </p><p>head touched the pillow. </p><p>CHAPTER VIII. </p><p>When I awoke I felt greatly refreshed, and lay a considerable time in </p><p>a dozing state, enjoying the sensation of bodily comfort. The </p><p>experiences of the day previous, my waking to find myself in the year </p><p>2000, the sight of the new Boston, my host and his family, and the </p><p>wonderful things I had heard, were a blank in my memory. I thought I </p><p>was in my bed-chamber at home, and the half-dreaming, half-waking </p><p>fancies which passed before my mind related to the incidents and </p><p>experiences of my former life. Dreamily I reviewed the incidents of </p><p>Decoration Day, my trip in company with Edith and her parents to Mount </p><p>Auburn, and my dining with them on our return to the city. I recalled </p><p>how extremely well Edith had looked, and from that fell to thinking of </p><p>our marriage; but scarcely had my imagination begun to develop this </p><p>delightful theme than my waking dream was cut short by the </p><p>recollection of the letter I had received the night before from the </p><p>builder announcing that the new strikes might postpone indefinitely </p><p>the completion of the new house. The chagrin which this recollection </p><p>brought with it effectually roused me. I remembered that I had an </p><p>appointment with the builder at eleven o'clock, to discuss the strike, </p><p>and opening my eyes, looked up at the clock at the foot of my bed to </p><p>see what time it was. But no clock met my glance, and what was more, I </p><p>instantly perceived that I was not in my room. Starting up on my </p><p>couch, I stared wildly round the strange apartment. </p><p>I think it must have been many seconds that I sat up thus in bed </p><p>staring about, without being able to regain the clew to my personal</p><p>identity. I was no more able to distinguish myself from pure being </p><p>during those moments than we may suppose a soul in the rough to be </p><p>before it has received the ear-marks, the individualizing touches </p><p>which make it a person. Strange that the sense of this inability </p><p>should be such anguish! but so we are constituted. There are no words </p><p>for the mental torture I endured during this helpless, eyeless groping </p><p>for myself in a boundless void. No other experience of the mind gives </p><p>probably anything like the sense of absolute intellectual arrest from </p><p>the loss of a mental fulcrum, a starting point of thought, which comes </p><p>during such a momentary obscuration of the sense of one's identity. I </p><p>trust I may never know what it is again. </p><p>I do not know how long this condition had lasted,--it seemed an </p><p>interminable time,--when, like a flash, the recollection of everything </p><p>came back to me. I remembered who and where I was, and how I had come </p><p>here, and that these scenes as of the life of yesterday which had </p><p>been passing before my mind concerned a generation long, long ago </p><p>mouldered to dust. Leaping from bed, I stood in the middle of the room </p><p>clasping my temples with all my might between my hands to keep them </p><p>from bursting. Then I fell prone on the couch, and, burying my face in </p><p>the pillow, lay with out motion. The reaction which was inevitable, </p><p>from the mental elation, the fever of the intellect that had been the </p><p>first effect of my tremendous experience, had arrived. The emotional </p><p>crisis which had awaited the full realization of my actual position, </p><p>and all that it implied, was upon me, and with set teeth and laboring </p><p>chest, gripping the bedstead with frenzied strength, I lay there and </p><p>fought for my sanity. In my mind, all had broken loose, habits of </p><p>feeling, associations of thought, ideas of persons and things, all had </p><p>dissolved and lost coherence and were seething together in apparently </p><p>irretrievable chaos. There were no rallying points, nothing was left </p><p>stable. There only remained the will, and was any human will strong </p><p>enough to say to such a weltering sea "Peace, be still"? I dared not </p><p>think. Every effort to reason upon what had befallen me, and realize </p><p>what it implied, set up an intolerable swimming of the brain. The idea </p><p>that I was two persons, that my identity was double, began to </p><p>fascinate me with its simple solution of my experience. </p><p>I knew that I was on the verge of losing my mental balance. If I lay </p><p>there thinking, I was doomed. Diversion of some sort I must have, at </p><p>least the diversion of physical exertion. I sprang up, and, hastily </p><p>dressing, opened the door of my room and went down-stairs. The hour </p><p>was very early, it being not yet fairly light, and I found no one in </p><p>the lower part of the house. There was a hat in the hall, and, opening </p><p>the front door, which was fastened with a slightness indicating that </p><p>burglary was not among the perils of the modern Boston, I found myself </p><p>on the street. For two hours I walked or ran through the streets of </p><p>the city, visiting most quarters of the peninsular part of the town. </p><p>None but an antiquarian who knows something of the contrast which the </p><p>Boston of to-day offers to the Boston of the nineteenth century can </p><p>begin to appreciate what a series of bewildering surprises I underwent </p><p>during that time. Viewed from the house-top the day before, the city </p><p>had indeed appeared strange to me, but that was only in its general </p><p>aspect. How complete the change had been I first realized now that I </p><p>walked the streets. The few old landmarks which still remained only </p><p>intensified this effect, for without them I might have imagined myself </p><p>in a foreign town. A man may leave his native city in childhood, and </p><p>return fifty years later, perhaps, to find it transformed in many </p><p>features. He is astonished, but he is not bewildered. He is aware of a </p><p>great lapse of time, and of changes likewise occurring in himself</p><p>meanwhile. He but dimly recalls the city as he knew it when a child. </p><p>But remember that there was no sense of any lapse of time with me. So </p><p>far as my consciousness was concerned, it was but yesterday, but a few </p><p>hours, since I had walked these streets in which scarcely a feature </p><p>had escaped a complete metamorphosis. The mental image of the old city </p><p>was so fresh and strong that it did not yield to the impression of the </p><p>actual city, but contended with it, so that it was first one and then </p><p>the other which seemed the more unreal. There was nothing I saw which </p><p>was not blurred in this way, like the faces of a composite photograph. </p><p>Finally, I stood again at the door of the house from which I had come </p><p>out. My feet must have instinctively brought me back to the site of my </p><p>old home, for I had no clear idea of returning thither. It was no more </p><p>homelike to me than any other spot in this city of a strange </p><p>generation, nor were its inmates less utterly and necessarily </p><p>strangers than all the other men and women now on the earth. Had the </p><p>door of the house been locked, I should have been reminded by its </p><p>resistance that I had no object in entering, and turned away, but it </p><p>yielded to my hand, and advancing with uncertain steps through the </p><p>hall, I entered one of the apartments opening from it. Throwing myself </p><p>into a chair, I covered my burning eyeballs with my hands to shut out </p><p>the horror of strangeness. My mental confusion was so intense as to </p><p>produce actual nausea. The anguish of those moments, during which my </p><p>brain seemed melting, or the abjectness of my sense of helplessness, </p><p>how can I describe? In my despair I groaned aloud. I began to feel </p><p>that unless some help should come I was about to lose my mind. And </p><p>just then it did come. I heard the rustle of drapery, and looked up. </p><p>Edith Leete was standing before me. Her beautiful face was full of the </p><p>most poignant sympathy. </p><p>"Oh, what is the matter, Mr. West?" she said. "I was here when you </p><p>came in. I saw how dreadfully distressed you looked, and when I heard </p><p>you groan, I could not keep silent. What has happened to you? Where </p><p>have you been? Can't I do something for you?" </p><p>Perhaps she involuntarily held out her hands in a gesture of </p><p>compassion as she spoke. At any rate I had caught them in my own and </p><p>was clinging to them with an impulse as instinctive as that which </p><p>prompts the drowning man to seize upon and cling to the rope which is </p><p>thrown him as he sinks for the last time. As I looked up into her </p><p>compassionate face and her eyes moist with pity, my brain ceased to </p><p>whirl. The tender human sympathy which thrilled in the soft pressure </p><p>of her fingers had brought me the support I needed. Its effect to calm </p><p>and soothe was like that of some wonder-working elixir. </p><p>"God bless you," I said, after a few moments. "He must have sent you </p><p>to me just now. I think I was in danger of going crazy if you had not </p><p>come." At this the tears came into her eyes. </p><p>"Oh, Mr. West!" she cried. "How heartless you must have thought us! </p><p>How could we leave you to yourself so long! But it is over now, is it </p><p>not? You are better, surely." </p><p>"Yes," I said, "thanks to you. If you will not go away quite yet, I </p><p>shall be myself soon." </p><p>"Indeed I will not go away," she said, with a little quiver of her </p><p>face, more expressive of her sympathy than a volume of words. "You </p><p>must not think us so heartless as we seemed in leaving you so by</p><p>yourself. I scarcely slept last night, for thinking how strange your </p><p>waking would be this morning; but father said you would sleep till </p><p>late. He said that it would be better not to show too much sympathy </p><p>with you at first, but to try to divert your thoughts and make you </p><p>feel that you were among friends." </p><p>"You have indeed made me feel that," I answered. "But you see it is a </p><p>good deal of a jolt to drop a hundred years, and although I did not </p><p>seem to feel it so much last night, I have had very odd sensations </p><p>this morning." While I held her hands and kept my eyes on her face, I </p><p>could already even jest a little at my plight. </p><p>"No one thought of such a thing as your going out in the city alone so </p><p>early in the morning," she went on. "Oh, Mr. West, where have you </p><p>been?" </p><p>Then I told her of my morning's experience, from my first waking till </p><p>the moment I had looked up to see her before me, just as I have told </p><p>it here. She was overcome by distressful pity during the recital, and, </p><p>though I had released one of her hands, did not try to take from me </p><p>the other, seeing, no doubt, how much good it did me to hold it. "I </p><p>can think a little what this feeling must been like," she said. "It </p><p>must have been terrible. And to think you were left alone to struggle </p><p>with it! Can you ever forgive us?" </p><p>"But it is gone now. You have driven it quite away for the present," I </p><p>said. </p><p>"You will not let it return again," she queried anxiously. </p><p>"I can't quite say that," I replied. "It might be too early to say </p><p>that, considering how strange everything will still be to me." </p><p>"But you will not try to contend with it alone again, at least," she </p><p>persisted. "Promise that you will come to us, and let us sympathize </p><p>with you, and try to help you. Perhaps we can't do much, but it will </p><p>surely be better than to try to bear such feelings alone." </p><p>"I will come to you if you will let me," I said. </p><p>"Oh yes, yes, I beg you will," she said eagerly. "I would do anything </p><p>to help you that I could." </p><p>"All you need do is to be sorry for me, as you seem to be now," I </p><p>replied. </p><p>"It is understood, then," she said, smiling with wet eyes, "that you </p><p>are to come and tell me next time, and not run all over Boston among </p><p>strangers." </p><p>This assumption that we were not strangers seemed scarcely strange, so </p><p>near within these few minutes had my trouble and her sympathetic tears </p><p>brought us. </p><p>"I will promise, when you come to me," she added, with an expression </p><p>of charming archness, passing, as she continued, into one of </p><p>enthusiasm, "to seem as sorry for you as you wish, but you must not </p><p>for a moment suppose that I am really sorry for you at all, or that I </p><p>think you will long be sorry for yourself. I know, as well as I know</p><p>that the world now is heaven compared with what it was in your day, </p><p>that the only feeling you will have after a little while will be one </p><p>of thankfulness to God that your life in that age was so strangely cut </p><p>off, to be returned to you in this." </p><p>CHAPTER IX. </p><p>Dr. and Mrs. Leete were evidently not a little startled to learn, when </p><p>they presently appeared, that I had been all over the city alone that </p><p>morning, and it was apparent that they were agreeably surprised to see </p><p>that I seemed so little agitated after the experience. </p><p>"Your stroll could scarcely have failed to be a very interesting one," </p><p>said Mrs. Leete, as we sat down to table soon after. "You must have </p><p>seen a good many new things." </p><p>"I saw very little that was not new," I replied. "But I think what </p><p>surprised me as much as anything was not to find any stores on </p><p>Washington Street, or any banks on State. What have you done with the </p><p>merchants and bankers? Hung them all, perhaps, as the anarchists </p><p>wanted to do in my day?" </p><p>"Not so bad as that," replied Dr. Leete. "We have simply dispensed </p><p>with them. Their functions are obsolete in the modern world." </p><p>"Who sells you things when you want to buy them?" I inquired. </p><p>"There is neither selling nor buying nowadays; the distribution of </p><p>goods is effected in another way. As to the bankers, having no money </p><p>we have no use for those gentry." </p><p>"Miss Leete," said I, turning to Edith, "I am afraid that your father </p><p>is making sport of me. I don't blame him, for the temptation my </p><p>innocence offers must be extraordinary. But, really, there are limits </p><p>to my credulity as to possible alterations in the social system." </p><p>"Father has no idea of jesting, I am sure," she replied, with a </p><p>reassuring smile. </p><p>The conversation took another turn then, the point of ladies' fashions </p><p>in the nineteenth century being raised, if I remember rightly, by Mrs. </p><p>Leete, and it was not till after breakfast, when the doctor had </p><p>invited me up to the house-top, which appeared to be a favorite resort </p><p>of his, that he recurred to the subject. </p><p>"You were surprised," he said, "at my saying that we got along without </p><p>money or trade, but a moment's reflection will show that trade existed </p><p>and money was needed in your day simply because the business of </p><p>production was left in private hands, and that, consequently, they are </p><p>superfluous now." </p><p>"I do not at once see how that follows," I replied. </p><p>"It is very simple," said Dr. Leete. "When innumerable different and </p><p>independent persons produced the various things needful to life and</p><p>comfort, endless exchanges between individuals were requisite in </p><p>order that they might supply themselves with what they desired. These </p><p>exchanges constituted trade, and money was essential as their medium. </p><p>But as soon as the nation became the sole producer of all sorts of </p><p>commodities, there was no need of exchanges between individuals that </p><p>they might get what they required. Everything was procurable from one </p><p>source, and nothing could be procured anywhere else. A system of </p><p>direct distribution from the national storehouses took the place of </p><p>trade, and for this money was unnecessary." </p><p>"How is this distribution managed?" I asked. </p><p>"On the simplest possible plan," replied Dr. Leete. "A credit </p><p>corresponding to his share of the annual product of the nation is </p><p>given to every citizen on the public books at the beginning of each </p><p>year, and a credit card issued him with which he procures at the </p><p>public storehouses, found in every community, whatever he desires </p><p>whenever he desires it. This arrangement, you will see, totally </p><p>obviates the necessity for business transactions of any sort between </p><p>individuals and consumers. Perhaps you would like to see what our </p><p>credit-cards are like. </p><p>"You observe," he pursued as I was curiously examining the piece of </p><p>pasteboard he gave me, "that this card is issued for a certain number </p><p>of dollars. We have kept the old word, but not the substance. The </p><p>term, as we use it, answers to no real thing, but merely serves as an </p><p>algebraical symbol for comparing the values of products with one </p><p>another. For this purpose they are all priced in dollars and cents, </p><p>just as in your day. The value of what I procure on this card is </p><p>checked off by the clerk, who pricks out of these tiers of squares the </p><p>price of what I order." </p><p>"If you wanted to buy something of your neighbor, could you transfer </p><p>part of your credit to him as consideration?" I inquired. </p><p>"In the first place," replied Dr. Leete, "our neighbors have nothing </p><p>to sell us, but in any event our credit would not be transferable, </p><p>being strictly personal. Before the nation could even think of </p><p>honoring any such transfer as you speak of, it would be bound to </p><p>inquire into all the circumstances of the transaction, so as to be </p><p>able to guarantee its absolute equity. It would have been reason </p><p>enough, had there been no other, for abolishing money, that its </p><p>possession was no indication of rightful title to it. In the hands of </p><p>the man who had stolen it or murdered for it, it was as good as in </p><p>those which had earned it by industry. People nowadays interchange </p><p>gifts and favors out of friendship, but buying and selling is </p><p>considered absolutely inconsistent with the mutual benevolence and </p><p>disinterestedness which should prevail between citizens and the sense </p><p>of community of interest which supports our social system. According </p><p>to our ideas, buying and selling is essentially anti-social in all </p><p>its tendencies. It is an education in self-seeking at the expense of </p><p>others, and no society whose citizens are trained in such a school can </p><p>possibly rise above a very low grade of civilization." </p><p>"What if you have to spend more than your card in any one year?" I </p><p>asked. </p><p>"The provision is so ample that we are more likely not to spend it </p><p>all," replied Dr. Leete. "But if extraordinary expenses should exhaust</p><p>it, we can obtain a limited advance on the next year's credit, though </p><p>this practice is not encouraged, and a heavy discount is charged to </p><p>check it. Of course if a man showed himself a reckless spendthrift he </p><p>would receive his allowance monthly or weekly instead of yearly, or if </p><p>necessary not be permitted to handle it all." </p><p>"If you don't spend your allowance, I suppose it accumulates?" </p><p>"That is also permitted to a certain extent when a special outlay is </p><p>anticipated. But unless notice to the contrary is given, it is </p><p>presumed that the citizen who does not fully expend his credit did not </p><p>have occasion to do so, and the balance is turned into the general </p><p>surplus." </p><p>"Such a system does not encourage saving habits on the part of </p><p>citizens," I said. </p><p>"It is not intended to," was the reply. "The nation is rich, and does </p><p>not wish the people to deprive themselves of any good thing. In your </p><p>day, men were bound to lay up goods and money against coming failure </p><p>of the means of support and for their children. This necessity made </p><p>parsimony a virtue. But now it would have no such laudable object, </p><p>and, having lost its utility, it has ceased to be regarded as a </p><p>virtue. No man any more has any care for the morrow, either for </p><p>himself or his children, for the nation guarantees the nurture, </p><p>education, and comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the </p><p>cradle to the grave." </p><p>"That is a sweeping guarantee!" I said. "What certainty can there be </p><p>that the value of a man's labor will recompense the nation for its </p><p>outlay on him? On the whole, society may be able to support all its </p><p>members, but some must earn less than enough for their support, and </p><p>others more; and that brings us back once more to the wages question, </p><p>on which you have hitherto said nothing. It was at just this point, if </p><p>you remember, that our talk ended last evening; and I say again, as I </p><p>did then, that here I should suppose a national industrial system like </p><p>yours would find its main difficulty. How, I ask once more, can you </p><p>adjust satisfactorily the comparative wages or remuneration of the </p><p>multitude of avocations, so unlike and so incommensurable, which are </p><p>necessary for the service of society? In our day the market rate </p><p>determined the price of labor of all sorts, as well as of goods. The </p><p>employer paid as little as he could, and the worker got as much. It </p><p>was not a pretty system ethically, I admit; but it did, at least, </p><p>furnish us a rough and ready formula for settling a question which </p><p>must be settled ten thousand times a day if the world was ever going </p><p>to get forward. There seemed to us no other practicable way of doing </p><p>it." </p><p>"Yes," replied Dr. Leete, "it was the only practicable way under a </p><p>system which made the interests of every individual antagonistic to </p><p>those of every other; but it would have been a pity if humanity could </p><p>never have devised a better plan, for yours was simply the application </p><p>to the mutual relations of men of the devil's maxim, 'Your necessity </p><p>is my opportunity.' The reward of any service depended not upon its </p><p>difficulty, danger, or hardship, for throughout the world it seems </p><p>that the most perilous, severe, and repulsive labor was done by the </p><p>worst paid classes; but solely upon the strait of those who needed the </p><p>service." </p><p>"All that is conceded," I said. "But, with all its defects, the plan </p><p>of settling prices by the market rate was a practical plan; and I </p><p>cannot conceive what satisfactory substitute you can have devised for </p><p>it. The government being the only possible employer, there is of </p><p>course no labor market or market rate. Wages of all sorts must be </p><p>arbitrarily fixed by the government. I cannot imagine a more complex </p><p>and delicate function than that must be, or one, however performed, </p><p>more certain to breed universal dissatisfaction." </p><p>"I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but I think you exaggerate </p><p>the difficulty. Suppose a board of fairly sensible men were charged </p><p>with settling the wages for all sorts of trades under a system which, </p><p>like ours, guaranteed employment to all, while permitting the choice </p><p>of avocations. Don't you see that, however unsatisfactory the first </p><p>adjustment might be, the mistakes would soon correct themselves? The </p><p>favored trades would have too many volunteers, and those discriminated </p><p>against would lack them till the errors were set right. But this is </p><p>aside from the purpose, for, though this plan would, I fancy, be </p><p>practicable enough, it is no part of our system." </p><p>"How, then, do you regulate wages?" I once more asked. </p><p>Dr. Leete did not reply till after several moments of meditative </p><p>silence. "I know, of course," he finally said, "enough of the old </p><p>order of things to understand just what you mean by that question; and </p><p>yet the present order is so utterly different at this point that I am </p><p>a little at loss how to answer you best. You ask me how we regulate </p><p>wages; I can only reply that there is no idea in the modern social </p><p>economy which at all corresponds with what was meant by wages in your </p><p>day." </p><p>"I suppose you mean that you have no money to pay wages in," said I. </p><p>"But the credit given the worker at the government storehouse answers </p><p>to his wages with us. How is the amount of the credit given </p><p>respectively to the workers in different lines determined? By what </p><p>title does the individual claim his particular share? What is the </p><p>basis of allotment?" </p><p>"His title," replied Dr. Leete, "is his humanity. The basis of his </p><p>claim is the fact that he is a man." </p><p>"The fact that he is a man!" I repeated, incredulously. "Do you </p><p>possibly mean that all have the same share?" </p><p>"Most assuredly." </p><p>The readers of this book never having practically known any other </p><p>arrangement, or perhaps very carefully considered the historical </p><p>accounts of former epochs in which a very different system prevailed, </p><p>cannot be expected to appreciate the stupor of amazement into which </p><p>Dr. Leete's simple statement plunged me. </p><p>"You see," he said, smiling, "that it is not merely that we have no </p><p>money to pay wages in, but, as I said, we have nothing at all </p><p>answering to your idea of wages." </p><p>By this time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice some </p><p>of the criticisms which, man of the nineteenth century as I was, came </p><p>uppermost in my mind, upon this to me astounding arrangement. "Some</p><p>men do twice the work of others!" I exclaimed. "Are the clever workmen </p><p>content with a plan that ranks them with the indifferent?" </p><p>"We leave no possible ground for any complaint of injustice," replied </p><p>Dr. Leete, "by requiring precisely the same measure of service from </p><p>all." </p><p>"How can you do that, I should like to know, when no two men's powers </p><p>are the same?" </p><p>"Nothing could be simpler," was Dr. Leete's reply. "We require of each </p><p>that he shall make the same effort; that is, we demand of him the best </p><p>service it is in his power to give." </p><p>"And supposing all do the best they can," I answered, "the amount of </p><p>the product resulting is twice greater from one man than from </p><p>another." </p><p>"Very true," replied Dr. Leete; "but the amount of the resulting </p><p>product has nothing whatever to do with the question, which is one of </p><p>desert. Desert is a moral question, and the amount of the product a </p><p>material quantity. It would be an extraordinary sort of logic which </p><p>should try to determine a moral question by a material standard. The </p><p>amount of the effort alone is pertinent to the question of desert. All </p><p>men who do their best, do the same. A man's endowments, however </p><p>godlike, merely fix the measure of his duty. The man of great </p><p>endowments who does not do all he might, though he may do more than a </p><p>man of small endowments who does his best, is deemed a less deserving </p><p>worker than the latter, and dies a debtor to his fellows. The Creator </p><p>sets men's tasks for them by the faculties he gives them; we simply </p><p>exact their fulfillment." </p><p>"No doubt that is very fine philosophy," I said; "nevertheless it </p><p>seems hard that the man who produces twice as much as another, even if </p><p>both do their best, should have only the same share." </p><p>"Does it, indeed, seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete. "Now, do you </p><p>know, that seems very curious to me? The way it strikes people </p><p>nowadays is, that a man who can produce twice as much as another with </p><p>the same effort, instead of being rewarded for doing so, ought to be </p><p>punished if he does not do so. In the nineteenth century, when a horse </p><p>pulled a heavier load than a goat, I suppose you rewarded him. Now, we </p><p>should have whipped him soundly if he had not, on the ground that, </p><p>being much stronger, he ought to. It is singular how ethical standards </p><p>change." The doctor said this with such a twinkle in his eye that I </p><p>was obliged to laugh. </p><p>"I suppose," I said, "that the real reason that we rewarded men for </p><p>their endowments, while we considered those of horses and goats merely </p><p>as fixing the service to be severally required of them, was that the </p><p>animals, not being reasoning beings, naturally did the best they </p><p>could, whereas men could only be induced to do so by rewarding them </p><p>according to the amount of their product. That brings me to ask why, </p><p>unless human nature has mightily changed in a hundred years, you are </p><p>not under the same necessity." </p><p>"We are," replied Dr. Leete. "I don't think there has been any change </p><p>in human nature in that respect since your day. It is still so </p><p>constituted that special incentives in the form of prizes, and</p><p>advantages to be gained, are requisite to call out the best endeavors </p><p>of the average man in any direction." </p><p>"But what inducement," I asked, "can a man have to put forth his best </p><p>endeavors when, however much or little he accomplishes, his income </p><p>remains the same? High characters may be moved by devotion to the </p><p>common welfare under such a system, but does not the average man tend </p><p>to rest back on his oar, reasoning that it is of no use to make a </p><p>special effort, since the effort will not increase his income, nor its </p><p>withholding diminish it?" </p><p>"Does it then really seem to you," answered my companion, "that human </p><p>nature is insensible to any motives save fear of want and love of </p><p>luxury, that you should expect security and equality of livelihood to </p><p>leave them without possible incentives to effort? Your contemporaries </p><p>did not really think so, though they might fancy they did. When it was </p><p>a question of the grandest class of efforts, the most absolute </p><p>self-devotion, they depended on quite other incentives. Not higher </p><p>wages, but honor and the hope of men's gratitude, patriotism and the </p><p>inspiration of duty, were the motives which they set before their </p><p>soldiers when it was a question of dying for the nation, and never </p><p>was there an age of the world when those motives did not call out what </p><p>is best and noblest in men. And not only this, but when you come to </p><p>analyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort in </p><p>your day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury was but </p><p>one of several motives which the pursuit of money represented; the </p><p>others, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, of </p><p>social position, and reputation for ability and success. So you see </p><p>that though we have abolished poverty and the fear of it, and </p><p>inordinate luxury with the hope of it, we have not touched the greater </p><p>part of the motives which underlay the love of money in former times, </p><p>or any of those which prompted the supremer sorts of effort. The </p><p>coarser motives, which no longer move us, have been replaced by higher </p><p>motives wholly unknown to the mere wage earners of your age. Now that </p><p>industry of whatever sort is no longer self-service, but service of </p><p>the nation, patriotism, passion for humanity, impel the worker as in </p><p>your day they did the soldier. The army of industry is an army, not </p><p>alone by virtue of its perfect organization, but by reason also of the </p><p>ardor of self-devotion which animates its members. </p><p>"But as you used to supplement the motives of patriotism with the love </p><p>of glory, in order to stimulate the valor of your soldiers, so do we. </p><p>Based as our industrial system is on the principle of requiring the </p><p>same unit of effort from every man, that is, the best he can do, you </p><p>will see that the means by which we spur the workers to do their best </p><p>must be a very essential part of our scheme. With us, diligence in the </p><p>national service is the sole and certain way to public repute, social </p><p>distinction, and official power. The value of a man's services to </p><p>society fixes his rank in it. Compared with the effect of our social </p><p>arrangements in impelling men to be zealous in business, we deem the </p><p>object-lessons of biting poverty and wanton luxury on which you </p><p>depended a device as weak and uncertain as it was barbaric. The lust </p><p>of honor even in your sordid day notoriously impelled men to more </p><p>desperate effort than the love of money could." </p><p>"I should be extremely interested," I said, "to learn something of </p><p>what these social arrangements are." </p><p>"The scheme in its details," replied the doctor, "is of course very</p><p>elaborate, for it underlies the entire organization of our industrial </p><p>army; but a few words will give you a general idea of it." </p><p>At this moment our talk was charmingly interrupted by the emergence </p><p>upon the aerial platform where we sat of Edith Leete. She was dressed </p><p>for the street, and had come to speak to her father about some </p><p>commission she was to do for him. </p><p>"By the way, Edith," he exclaimed, as she was about to leave us to </p><p>ourselves, "I wonder if Mr. West would not be interested in visiting </p><p>the store with you? I have been telling him something about our system </p><p>of distribution, and perhaps he might like to see it in practical </p><p>operation." </p><p>"My daughter," he added, turning to me, "is an indefatigable shopper, </p><p>and can tell you more about the stores than I can." </p><p>The proposition was naturally very agreeable to me, and Edith being </p><p>good enough to say that she should be glad to have my company, we left </p><p>the house together. </p><p>CHAPTER X. </p><p>"If I am going to explain our way of shopping to you," said my </p><p>companion, as we walked along the street, "you must explain your way </p><p>to me. I have never been able to understand it from all I have read on </p><p>the subject. For example, when you had such a vast number of shops, </p><p>each with its different assortment, how could a lady ever settle upon </p><p>any purchase till she had visited all the shops? for, until she had, </p><p>she could not know what there was to choose from." </p><p>"It was as you suppose; that was the only way she could know," I </p><p>replied. </p><p>"Father calls me an indefatigable shopper, but I should soon be a very </p><p>fatigued one if I had to do as they did," was Edith's laughing </p><p>comment. </p><p>"The loss of time in going from shop to shop was indeed a waste which </p><p>the busy bitterly complained of," I said; "but as for the ladies of </p><p>the idle class, though they complained also, I think the system was </p><p>really a godsend by furnishing a device to kill time." </p><p>"But say there were a thousand shops in a city, hundreds, perhaps, of </p><p>the same sort, how could even the idlest find time to make their </p><p>rounds?" </p><p>"They really could not visit all, of course," I replied. "Those who </p><p>did a great deal of buying, learned in time where they might expect to </p><p>find what they wanted. This class had made a science of the </p><p>specialties of the shops, and bought at advantage, always getting the </p><p>most and best for the least money. It required, however, long </p><p>experience to acquire this knowledge. Those who were too busy, or </p><p>bought too little to gain it, took their chances and were generally </p><p>unfortunate, getting the least and worst for the most money. It was</p><p>the merest chance if persons not experienced in shopping received the </p><p>value of their money." </p><p>"But why did you put up with such a shockingly inconvenient </p><p>arrangement when you saw its faults so plainly?" Edith asked me. </p><p>"It was like all our social arrangements," I replied. "You can see </p><p>their faults scarcely more plainly than we did, but we saw no remedy </p><p>for them." </p><p>"Here we are at the store of our ward," said Edith, as we turned in at </p><p>the great portal of one of the magnificent public buildings I had </p><p>observed in my morning walk. There was nothing in the exterior aspect </p><p>of the edifice to suggest a store to a representative of the </p><p>nineteenth century. There was no display of goods in the great </p><p>windows, or any device to advertise wares, or attract custom. Nor was </p><p>there any sort of sign or legend on the front of the building to </p><p>indicate the character of the business carried on there; but instead, </p><p>above the portal, standing out from the front of the building, a </p><p>majestic life-size group of statuary, the central figure of which was </p><p>a female ideal of Plenty, with her cornucopia. Judging from the </p><p>composition of the throng passing in and out, about the same </p><p>proportion of the sexes among shoppers obtained as in the nineteenth </p><p>century. As we entered, Edith said that there was one of these great </p><p>distributing establishments in each ward of the city, so that no </p><p>residence was more than five or ten minutes' walk from one of them. It </p><p>was the first interior of a twentieth-century public building that I </p><p>had ever beheld, and the spectacle naturally impressed me deeply. I </p><p>was in a vast hall full of light, received not alone from the windows </p><p>on all sides, but from the dome, the point of which was a hundred feet </p><p>above. Beneath it, in the centre of the hall, a magnificent fountain </p><p>played, cooling the atmosphere to a delicious freshness with its </p><p>spray. The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellow tints, calculated </p><p>to soften without absorbing the light which flooded the interior. </p><p>Around the fountain was a space occupied with chairs and sofas, on </p><p>which many persons were seated conversing. Legends on the walls all </p><p>about the hall indicated to what classes of commodities the counters </p><p>below were devoted. Edith directed her steps towards one of these, </p><p>where samples of muslin of a bewildering variety were displayed, and </p><p>proceeded to inspect them. </p><p>"Where is the clerk?" I asked, for there was no one behind the </p><p>counter, and no one seemed coming to attend to the customer. </p><p>"I have no need of the clerk yet," said Edith; "I have not made my </p><p>selection." </p><p>"It was the principal business of clerks to help people to make their </p><p>selections in my day," I replied. </p><p>"What! To tell people what they wanted?" </p><p>"Yes; and oftener to induce them to buy what they didn't want." </p><p>"But did not ladies find that very impertinent?" Edith asked, </p><p>wonderingly. "What concern could it possibly be to the clerks whether </p><p>people bought or not?" </p><p>"It was their sole concern," I answered. "They were hired for the</p><p>purpose of getting rid of the goods, and were expected to do their </p><p>utmost, short of the use of force, to compass that end." </p><p>"Ah, yes! How stupid I am to forget!" said Edith. "The storekeeper and </p><p>his clerks depended for their livelihood on selling the goods in your </p><p>day. Of course that is all different now. The goods are the nation's. </p><p>They are here for those who want them, and it is the business of the </p><p>clerks to wait on people and take their orders; but it is not the </p><p>interest of the clerk or the nation to dispose of a yard or a pound of </p><p>anything to anybody who does not want it." She smiled as she added, </p><p>"How exceedingly odd it must have seemed to have clerks trying to </p><p>induce one to take what one did not want, or was doubtful about!" </p><p>"But even a twentieth-century clerk might make himself useful in </p><p>giving you information about the goods, though he did not tease you to </p><p>buy them," I suggested. </p><p>"No," said Edith, "that is not the business of the clerk. These </p><p>printed cards, for which the government authorities are responsible, </p><p>give us all the information we can possibly need." </p><p>I saw then that there was fastened to each sample a card containing in </p><p>succinct form a complete statement of the make and materials of the </p><p>goods and all its qualities, as well as price, leaving absolutely no </p><p>point to hang a question on. </p><p>"The clerk has, then, nothing to say about the goods he sells?" I </p><p>said. </p><p>"Nothing at all. It is not necessary that he should know or profess to </p><p>know anything about them. Courtesy and accuracy in taking orders are </p><p>all that are required of him." </p><p>"What a prodigious amount of lying that simple arrangement saves!" I </p><p>ejaculated. </p><p>"Do you mean that all the clerks misrepresented their goods in your </p><p>day?" Edith asked. </p><p>"God forbid that I should say so!" I replied, "for there were many who </p><p>did not, and they were entitled to especial credit, for when one's </p><p>livelihood and that of his wife and babies depended on the amount of </p><p>goods he could dispose of, the temptation to deceive the customer--or </p><p>let him deceive himself--was wellnigh overwhelming. But, Miss Leete, I </p><p>am distracting you from your task with my talk." </p><p>"Not at all. I have made my selections." With that she touched a </p><p>button, and in a moment a clerk appeared. He took down her order on a </p><p>tablet with a pencil which made two copies, of which he gave one to </p><p>her, and enclosing the counterpart in a small receptacle, dropped it </p><p>into a transmitting tube. </p><p>"The duplicate of the order," said Edith as she turned away from the </p><p>counter, after the clerk had punched the value of her purchase out of </p><p>the credit card she gave him, "is given to the purchaser, so that any </p><p>mistakes in filling it can be easily traced and rectified." </p><p>"You were very quick about your selections," I said. "May I ask how </p><p>you knew that you might not have found something to suit you better in</p><p>some of the other stores? But probably you are required to buy in your </p><p>own district." </p><p>"Oh, no," she replied. "We buy where we please, though naturally most </p><p>often near home. But I should have gained nothing by visiting other </p><p>stores. The assortment in all is exactly the same, representing as it </p><p>does in each case samples of all the varieties produced or imported by </p><p>the United States. That is why one can decide quickly, and never need </p><p>visit two stores." </p><p>"And is this merely a sample store? I see no clerks cutting off goods </p><p>or marking bundles." </p><p>"All our stores are sample stores, except as to a few classes of </p><p>articles. The goods, with these exceptions, are all at the great </p><p>central warehouse of the city, to which they are shipped directly from </p><p>the producers. We order from the sample and the printed statement of </p><p>texture, make, and qualities. The orders are sent to the warehouse, </p><p>and the goods distributed from there." </p><p>"That must be a tremendous saving of handling," I said. "By our </p><p>system, the manufacturer sold to the wholesaler, the wholesaler to the </p><p>retailer, and the retailer to the consumer, and the goods had to be </p><p>handled each time. You avoid one handling of the goods, and eliminate </p><p>the retailer altogether, with his big profit and the army of clerks it </p><p>goes to support. Why, Miss Leete, this store is merely the order </p><p>department of a wholesale house, with no more than a wholesaler's </p><p>complement of clerks. Under our system of handling the goods, </p><p>persuading the customer to buy them, cutting them off, and packing </p><p>them, ten clerks would not do what one does here. The saving must be </p><p>enormous." </p><p>"I suppose so," said Edith, "but of course we have never known any </p><p>other way. But, Mr. West, you must not fail to ask father to take you </p><p>to the central warehouse some day, where they receive the orders from </p><p>the different sample houses all over the city and parcel out and send </p><p>the goods to their destinations. He took me there not long ago, and </p><p>it was a wonderful sight. The system is certainly perfect; for </p><p>example, over yonder in that sort of cage is the dispatching clerk. </p><p>The orders, as they are taken by the different departments in the </p><p>store, are sent by transmitters to him. His assistants sort them and </p><p>enclose each class in a carrier-box by itself. The dispatching clerk </p><p>has a dozen pneumatic transmitters before him answering to the general </p><p>classes of goods, each communicating with the corresponding department </p><p>at the warehouse. He drops the box of orders into the tube it calls </p><p>for, and in a few moments later it drops on the proper desk in the </p><p>warehouse, together with all the orders of the same sort from the </p><p>other sample stores. The orders are read off, recorded, and sent to be </p><p>filled, like lightning. The filling I thought the most interesting </p><p>part. Bales of cloth are placed on spindles and turned by machinery, </p><p>and the cutter, who also has a machine, works right through one bale </p><p>after another till exhausted, when another man takes his place; and it </p><p>is the same with those who fill the orders in any other staple. The </p><p>packages are then delivered by larger tubes to the city districts, and </p><p>thence distributed to the houses. You may understand how quickly it is </p><p>all done when I tell you that my order will probably be at home sooner </p><p>than I could have carried it from here." </p><p>"How do you manage in the thinly settled rural districts?" I asked.</p><p>"The system is the same," Edith explained; "the village sample shops </p><p>are connected by transmitters with the central county warehouse, which </p><p>may be twenty miles away. The transmission is so swift, though, that </p><p>the time lost on the way is trifling. But, to save expense, in many </p><p>counties one set of tubes connect several villages with the warehouse, </p><p>and then there is time lost waiting for one another. Sometimes it is </p><p>two or three hours before goods ordered are received. It was so where </p><p>I was staying last summer, and I found it quite inconvenient".[2] </p><p>"There must be many other respects also, no doubt, in which the </p><p>country stores are inferior to the city stores," I suggested. </p><p>"No," Edith answered, "they are otherwise precisely as good. The </p><p>sample shop of the smallest village, just like this one, gives you </p><p>your choice of all the varieties of goods the nation has, for the </p><p>county warehouse draws on the same source as the city warehouse." </p><p>As we walked home I commented on the great variety in the size and </p><p>cost of the houses. "How is it," I asked, "that this difference is </p><p>consistent with the fact that all citizens have the same income?" </p><p>"Because," Edith explained, "although the income is the same, personal </p><p>taste determines how the individual shall spend it. Some like fine </p><p>horses; others, like myself, prefer pretty clothes; and still others </p><p>want an elaborate table. The rents which the nation receives for these </p><p>houses vary, according to size, elegance, and location, so that </p><p>everybody can find something to suit. The larger houses are usually </p><p>occupied by large families, in which there are several to contribute </p><p>to the rent; while small families, like ours, find smaller houses more </p><p>convenient and economical. It is a matter of taste and convenience </p><p>wholly. I have read that in old times people often kept up </p><p>establishments and did other things which they could not afford for </p><p>ostentation, to make people think them richer than they were. Was it </p><p>really so, Mr. West?" </p><p>"I shall have to admit that it was," I replied. </p><p>"Well, you see, it could not be so nowadays; for everybody's income is </p><p>known, and it is known that what is spent one way must be saved </p><p>another." </p><p>[Footnote 2: I am informed since the above is in type that this lack </p><p>of perfection in the distributing service of some of the country </p><p>districts is to be remedied, and that soon every village will have its </p><p>own set of tubes.] </p><p>CHAPTER XI. </p><p>When we arrived home, Dr. Leete had not yet returned, and Mrs. Leete </p><p>was not visible. "Are you fond of music, Mr. West?" Edith asked. </p><p>I assured her that it was half of life, according to my notion. </p><p>"I ought to apologize for inquiring," she said. "It is not a question</p><p>that we ask one another nowadays; but I have read that in your day, </p><p>even among the cultured class, there were some who did not care for </p><p>music." </p><p>"You must remember, in excuse," I said, "that we had some rather </p><p>absurd kinds of music." </p><p>"Yes," she said, "I know that; I am afraid I should not have fancied </p><p>it all myself. Would you like to hear some of ours now, Mr. West?" </p><p>"Nothing would delight me so much as to listen to you," I said. </p><p>"To me!" she exclaimed, laughing. "Did you think I was going to play </p><p>or sing to you?" </p><p>"I hoped so, certainly," I replied. </p><p>Seeing that I was a little abashed, she subdued her merriment and </p><p>explained. "Of course, we all sing nowadays as a matter of course in </p><p>the training of the voice, and some learn to play instruments for </p><p>their private amusement; but the professional music is so much grander </p><p>and more perfect than any performance of ours, and so easily commanded </p><p>when we wish to hear it, that we don't think of calling our singing or </p><p>playing music at all. All the really fine singers and players are in </p><p>the musical service, and the rest of us hold our peace for the main </p><p>part. But would you really like to hear some music?" </p><p>I assured her once more that I would. </p><p>"Come, then, into the music room," she said, and I followed her into </p><p>an apartment finished, without hangings, in wood, with a floor of </p><p>polished wood. I was prepared for new devices in musical instruments, </p><p>but I saw nothing in the room which by any stretch of imagination </p><p>could be conceived as such. It was evident that my puzzled appearance </p><p>was affording intense amusement to Edith. </p><p>"Please look at to-day's music," she said, handing me a card, "and </p><p>tell me what you would prefer. It is now five o'clock, you will </p><p>remember." </p><p>The card bore the date "September 12, 2000," and contained the longest </p><p>programme of music I had ever seen. It was as various as it was long, </p><p>including a most extraordinary range of vocal and instrumental solos, </p><p>duets, quartettes, and various orchestral combinations. I remained </p><p>bewildered by the prodigious list until Edith's pink finger-tip </p><p>indicated a particular section of it, where several selections were </p><p>bracketed, with the words "5 P.M." against them; then I observed </p><p>that this prodigious programme was an all-day one, divided into </p><p>twenty-four sections answering to the hours. There were but a few </p><p>pieces of music in the "5 P.M." section, and I indicated an organ </p><p>piece as my preference. </p><p>"I am so glad you like the organ," said she. "I think there is </p><p>scarcely any music that suits my mood oftener." </p><p>She made me sit down comfortably, and, crossing the room, so far as I </p><p>could see, merely touched one or two screws, and at once the room was </p><p>filled with the music of a grand organ anthem; filled, not flooded, </p><p>for, by some means, the volume of melody had been perfectly graduated</p><p>to the size of the apartment. I listened, scarcely breathing, to the </p><p>close. Such music, so perfectly rendered, I had never expected to </p><p>hear. </p><p>"Grand!" I cried, as the last great wave of sound broke and ebbed away </p><p>into silence. "Bach must be at the keys of that organ; but where is </p><p>the organ?" </p><p>"Wait a moment, please," said Edith; "I want to have you listen to </p><p>this waltz before you ask any questions. I think it is perfectly </p><p>charming;" and as she spoke the sound of violins filled the room with </p><p>the witchery of a summer night. When this had also ceased, she said: </p><p>"There is nothing in the least mysterious about the music, as you seem </p><p>to imagine. It is not made by fairies or genii, but by good, honest, </p><p>and exceedingly clever human hands. We have simply carried the idea of </p><p>labor saving by co�peration into our musical service as into </p><p>everything else. There are a number of music rooms in the city, </p><p>perfectly adapted acoustically to the different sorts of music. These </p><p>halls are connected by telephone with all the houses of the city whose </p><p>people care to pay the small fee, and there are none, you may be sure, </p><p>who do not. The corps of musicians attached to each hall is so large </p><p>that, although no individual performer, or group of performers, has </p><p>more than a brief part, each day's programme lasts through the </p><p>twenty-four hours. There are on that card for to-day, as you will see </p><p>if you observe closely, distinct programmes of four of these concerts, </p><p>each of a different order of music from the others, being now </p><p>simultaneously performed, and any one of the four pieces now going on </p><p>that you prefer, you can hear by merely pressing the button which will </p><p>connect your house-wire with the hall where it is being rendered. The </p><p>programmes are so co�rdinated that the pieces at any one time </p><p>simultaneously proceeding in the different halls usually offer a </p><p>choice, not only between instrumental and vocal, and between different </p><p>sorts of instruments; but also between different motives from grave to </p><p>gay, so that all tastes and moods can be suited." </p><p>"It appears to me, Miss Leete," I said, "that if we could have devised </p><p>an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, </p><p>perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and </p><p>beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of </p><p>human felicity already attained, and ceased to strive for further </p><p>improvements." </p><p>"I am sure I never could imagine how those among you who depended at </p><p>all on music managed to endure the old-fashioned system for providing </p><p>it," replied Edith. "Music really worth hearing must have been, I </p><p>suppose, wholly out of the reach of the masses, and attainable by the </p><p>most favored only occasionally, at great trouble, prodigious expense, </p><p>and then for brief periods, arbitrarily fixed by somebody else, and in </p><p>connection with all sorts of undesirable circumstances. Your concerts, </p><p>for instance, and operas! How perfectly exasperating it must have </p><p>been, for the sake of a piece or two of music that suited you, to have </p><p>to sit for hours listening to what you did not care for! Now, at a </p><p>dinner one can skip the courses one does not care for. Who would ever </p><p>dine, however hungry, if required to eat everything brought on the </p><p>table? and I am sure one's hearing is quite as sensitive as one's </p><p>taste. I suppose it was these difficulties in the way of commanding </p><p>really good music which made you endure so much playing and singing in </p><p>your homes by people who had only the rudiments of the art." </p><p>"Yes," I replied, "it was that sort of music or none for most of us." </p><p>"Ah, well," Edith sighed, "when one really considers, it is not so </p><p>strange that people in those days so often did not care for music. I </p><p>dare say I should have detested it, too." </p><p>"Did I understand you rightly," I inquired, "that this musical </p><p>programme covers the entire twenty-four hours? It seems to on this </p><p>card, certainly; but who is there to listen to music between say </p><p>midnight and morning?" </p><p>"Oh, many," Edith replied. "Our people keep all hours; but if the </p><p>music were provided from midnight to morning for no others, it still </p><p>would be for the sleepless, the sick, and the dying. All our </p><p>bedchambers have a telephone attachment at the head of the bed by </p><p>which any person who may be sleepless can command music at pleasure, </p><p>of the sort suited to the mood." </p><p>"Is there such an arrangement in the room assigned to me?" </p><p>"Why, certainly; and how stupid, how very stupid, of me not to think </p><p>to tell you of that last night! Father will show you about the </p><p>adjustment before you go to bed to-night, however; and with the </p><p>receiver at your ear, I am quite sure you will be able to snap your </p><p>fingers at all sorts of uncanny feelings if they trouble you again." </p><p>That evening Dr. Leete asked us about our visit to the store, and in </p><p>the course of the desultory comparison of the ways of the nineteenth </p><p>century and the twentieth, which followed, something raised the </p><p>question of inheritance. "I suppose," I said, "the inheritance of </p><p>property is not now allowed." </p><p>"On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there is no interference with </p><p>it. In fact, you will find, Mr. West, as you come to know us, that </p><p>there is far less interference of any sort with personal liberty </p><p>nowadays than you were accustomed to. We require, indeed, by law that </p><p>every man shall serve the nation for a fixed period, instead of </p><p>leaving him his choice, as you did, between working, stealing, or </p><p>starving. With the exception of this fundamental law, which is, </p><p>indeed, merely a codification of the law of nature--the edict of </p><p>Eden--by which it is made equal in its pressure on men, our system </p><p>depends in no particular upon legislation, but is entirely voluntary, </p><p>the logical outcome of the operation of human nature under rational </p><p>conditions. This question of inheritance illustrates just that point. </p><p>The fact that the nation is the sole capitalist and land-owner of </p><p>course restricts the individual's possessions to his annual credit, </p><p>and what personal and household belongings he may have procured with </p><p>it. His credit, like an annuity in your day, ceases on his death, with </p><p>the allowance of a fixed sum for funeral expenses. His other </p><p>possessions he leaves as he pleases." </p><p>"What is to prevent, in course of time, such accumulations of valuable </p><p>goods and chattels in the hands of individuals as might seriously </p><p>interfere with equality in the circumstances of citizens?" I asked. </p><p>"That matter arranges itself very simply," was the reply. "Under the </p><p>present organization of society, accumulations of personal property </p><p>are merely burdensome the moment they exceed what adds to the real </p><p>comfort. In your day, if a man had a house crammed full with gold and</p><p>silver plate, rare china, expensive furniture, and such things, he was </p><p>considered rich, for these things represented money, and could at any </p><p>time be turned into it. Nowadays a man whom the legacies of a hundred </p><p>relatives, simultaneously dying, should place in a similar position, </p><p>would be considered very unlucky. The articles, not being salable, </p><p>would be of no value to him except for their actual use or the </p><p>enjoyment of their beauty. On the other hand, his income remaining the </p><p>same, he would have to deplete his credit to hire houses to store the </p><p>goods in, and still further to pay for the service of those who took </p><p>care of them. You may be very sure that such a man would lose no time </p><p>in scattering among his friends possessions which only made him the </p><p>poorer, and that none of those friends would accept more of them than </p><p>they could easily spare room for and time to attend to. You see, then, </p><p>that to prohibit the inheritance of personal property with a view to </p><p>prevent great accumulations would be a superfluous precaution for the </p><p>nation. The individual citizen can be trusted to see that he is not </p><p>overburdened. So careful is he in this respect, that the relatives </p><p>usually waive claim to most of the effects of deceased friends, </p><p>reserving only particular objects. The nation takes charge of the </p><p>resigned chattels, and turns such as are of value into the common </p><p>stock once more." </p><p>"You spoke of paying for service to take care of your houses," said I; </p><p>"that suggests a question I have several times been on the point of </p><p>asking. How have you disposed of the problem of domestic service? Who </p><p>are willing to be domestic servants in a community where all are </p><p>social equals? Our ladies found it hard enough to find such even when </p><p>there was little pretense of social equality." </p><p>"It is precisely because we are all social equals whose equality </p><p>nothing can compromise, and because service is honorable, in a society </p><p>whose fundamental principle is that all in turn shall serve the rest, </p><p>that we could easily provide a corps of domestic servants such as you </p><p>never dreamed of, if we needed them," replied Dr. Leete. "But we do </p><p>not need them." </p><p>"Who does your housework, then?" I asked. </p><p>"There is none to do," said Mrs. Leete, to whom I had addressed this </p><p>question. "Our washing is all done at public laundries at excessively </p><p>cheap rates, and our cooking at public kitchens The making and </p><p>repairing of all we wear are done outside in public shops. </p><p>Electricity, of course, takes the place of all fires and lighting. We </p><p>choose houses no larger than we need, and furnish them so as to </p><p>involve the minimum of trouble to keep them in order. We have no use </p><p>for domestic servants." </p><p>"The fact," said Dr. Leete, "that you had in the poorer classes a </p><p>boundless supply of serfs on whom you could impose all sorts of </p><p>painful and disagreeable tasks, made you indifferent to devices to </p><p>avoid the necessity for them. But now that we all have to do in turn </p><p>whatever work is done for society, every individual in the nation has </p><p>the same interest, and a personal one, in devices for lightening the </p><p>burden. This fact has given a prodigious impulse to labor-saving </p><p>inventions in all sorts of industry, of which the combination of the </p><p>maximum of comfort and minimum of trouble in household arrangements </p><p>was one of the earliest results. </p><p>"In case of special emergencies in the household," pursued Dr. Leete,</p><p>"such as extensive cleaning or renovation, or sickness in the family, </p><p>we can always secure assistance from the industrial force." </p><p>"But how do you recompense these assistants, since you have no money?" </p><p>"We do not pay them, of course, but the nation for them. Their </p><p>services can be obtained by application at the proper bureau, and </p><p>their value is pricked off the credit card of the applicant." </p><p>"What a paradise for womankind the world must be now!" I exclaimed. </p><p>"In my day, even wealth and unlimited servants did not enfranchise </p><p>their possessors from household cares, while the women of the merely </p><p>well-to-do and poorer classes lived and died martyrs to them." </p><p>"Yes," said Mrs. Leete, "I have read something of that; enough to </p><p>convince me that, badly off as the men, too, were in your day, they </p><p>were more fortunate than their mothers and wives." </p><p>"The broad shoulders of the nation," said Dr. Leete, "bear now like a </p><p>feather the burden that broke the backs of the women of your day. </p><p>Their misery came, with all your other miseries, from that incapacity </p><p>for co�peration which followed from the individualism on which your </p><p>social system was founded, from your inability to perceive that you </p><p>could make ten times more profit out of your fellow men by uniting </p><p>with them than by contending with them. The wonder is, not that you </p><p>did not live more comfortably, but that you were able to live together </p><p>at all, who were all confessedly bent on making one another your </p><p>servants, and securing possession of one another's goods." </p><p>"There, there, father, if you are so vehement, Mr. West will think you </p><p>are scolding him," laughingly interposed Edith. </p><p>"When you want a doctor," I asked, "do you simply apply to the proper </p><p>bureau and take any one that may be sent?" </p><p>"That rule would not work well in the case of physicians," replied Dr. </p><p>Leete. "The good a physician can do a patient depends largely on his </p><p>acquaintance with his constitutional tendencies and condition. The </p><p>patient must be able, therefore, to call in a particular doctor, and </p><p>he does so just as patients did in your day. The only difference is </p><p>that, instead of collecting his fee for himself, the doctor collects </p><p>it for the nation by pricking off the amount, according to a regular </p><p>scale for medical attendance, from the patient's credit card." </p><p>"I can imagine," I said, "that if the fee is always the same, and a </p><p>doctor may not turn away patients, as I suppose he may not, the good </p><p>doctors are called constantly and the poor doctors left in idleness." </p><p>"In the first place, if you will overlook the apparent conceit of the </p><p>remark from a retired physician," replied Dr. Leete, with a smile, "we </p><p>have no poor doctors. Anybody who pleases to get a little smattering </p><p>of medical terms is not now at liberty to practice on the bodies of </p><p>citizens, as in your day. None but students who have passed the severe </p><p>tests of the schools, and clearly proved their vocation, are permitted </p><p>to practice. Then, too, you will observe that there is nowadays no </p><p>attempt of doctors to build up their practice at the expense of other </p><p>doctors. There would be no motive for that. For the rest, the doctor </p><p>has to render regular reports of his work to the medical bureau, and </p><p>if he is not reasonably well employed, work is found for him."</p><p>CHAPTER XII. </p><p>The questions which I needed to ask before I could acquire even an </p><p>outline acquaintance with the institutions of the twentieth century </p><p>being endless, and Dr. Leete's good-nature appearing equally so, we </p><p>sat up talking for several hours after the ladies left us. Reminding </p><p>my host of the point at which our talk had broken off that morning, I </p><p>expressed my curiosity to learn how the organization of the industrial </p><p>army was made to afford a sufficient stimulus to diligence in the lack </p><p>of any anxiety on the worker's part as to his livelihood. </p><p>"You must understand in the first place," replied the doctor, "that </p><p>the supply of incentives to effort is but one of the objects sought in </p><p>the organization we have adopted for the army. The other, and equally </p><p>important, is to secure for the file-leaders and captains of the </p><p>force, and the great officers of the nation, men of proven abilities, </p><p>who are pledged by their own careers to hold their followers up to </p><p>their highest standard of performance and permit no lagging. With a </p><p>view to these two ends the industrial army is organized. First comes </p><p>the unclassified grade of common laborers, men of all work, to which </p><p>all recruits during their first three years belong. This grade is a </p><p>sort of school, and a very strict one, in which the young men are </p><p>taught habits of obedience, subordination, and devotion to duty. While </p><p>the miscellaneous nature of the work done by this force prevents the </p><p>systematic grading of the workers which is afterwards possible, yet </p><p>individual records are kept, and excellence receives distinction </p><p>corresponding with the penalties that negligence incurs. It is not, </p><p>however, policy with us to permit youthful recklessness or </p><p>indiscretion, when not deeply culpable, to handicap the future careers </p><p>of young men, and all who have passed through the unclassified grade </p><p>without serious disgrace have an equal opportunity to choose the life </p><p>employment they have most liking for. Having selected this, they enter </p><p>upon it as apprentices. The length of the apprenticeship naturally </p><p>differs in different occupations. At the end of it the apprentice </p><p>becomes a full workman, and a member of his trade or guild. Now not </p><p>only are the individual records of the apprentices for ability and </p><p>industry strictly kept, and excellence distinguished by suitable </p><p>distinctions, but upon the average of his record during apprenticeship </p><p>the standing given the apprentice among the full workmen depends. </p><p>"While the internal organizations of different industries, mechanical </p><p>and agricultural, differ according to their peculiar conditions, they </p><p>agree in a general division of their workers into first, second, and </p><p>third grades, according to ability, and these grades are in many cases </p><p>subdivided into first and second classes. According to his standing as </p><p>an apprentice a young man is assigned his place as a first, second, or </p><p>third grade worker. Of course only young men of unusual ability pass </p><p>directly from apprenticeship into the first grade of the workers. The </p><p>most fall into the lower grades, working up as they grow more </p><p>experienced, at the periodical regradings. These regradings take place </p><p>in each industry at intervals corresponding with the length of the </p><p>apprenticeship to that industry, so that merit never need wait long to </p><p>rise, nor can any rest on past achievements unless they would drop </p><p>into a lower rank. One of the notable advantages of a high grading is</p><p>the privilege it gives the worker in electing which of the various </p><p>branches or processes of his industry he will follow as his specialty. </p><p>Of course it is not intended that any of these processes shall be </p><p>disproportionately arduous, but there is often much difference between </p><p>them, and the privilege of election is accordingly highly prized. So </p><p>far as possible, indeed, the preferences even of the poorest workmen </p><p>are considered in assigning them their line of work, because not only </p><p>their happiness but their usefulness is thus enhanced. While, however, </p><p>the wish of the lower grade man is consulted so far as the exigencies </p><p>of the service permit, he is considered only after the upper grade men </p><p>have been provided for, and often he has to put up with second or </p><p>third choice, or even with an arbitrary assignment when help is </p><p>needed. This privilege of election attends every regrading, and when a </p><p>man loses his grade he also risks having to exchange the sort of work </p><p>he likes for some other less to his taste. The results of each </p><p>regrading, giving the standing of every man in his industry, are </p><p>gazetted in the public prints, and those who have won promotion since </p><p>the last regrading receive the nation's thanks and are publicly </p><p>invested with the badge of their new rank." </p><p>"What may this badge be?" I asked. </p><p>"Every industry has its emblematic device," replied Dr. Leete, "and </p><p>this, in the shape of a metallic badge so small that you might not see </p><p>it unless you knew where to look, is all the insignia which the men of </p><p>the army wear, except where public convenience demands a distinctive </p><p>uniform. This badge is the same in form for all grades of industry, </p><p>but while the badge of the third grade is iron, that of the second </p><p>grade is silver, and that of the first is gilt. </p><p>"Apart from the grand incentive to endeavor afforded by the fact that </p><p>the high places in the nation are open only to the highest class men, </p><p>and that rank in the army constitutes the only mode of social </p><p>distinction for the vast majority who are not aspirants in art, </p><p>literature, and the professions, various incitements of a minor, but </p><p>perhaps equally effective, sort are provided in the form of special </p><p>privileges and immunities in the way of discipline, which the superior </p><p>class men enjoy. These, while intended to be as little as possible </p><p>invidious to the less successful, have the effect of keeping </p><p>constantly before every man's mind the great desirability of attaining </p><p>the grade next above his own. </p><p>"It is obviously important that not only the good but also the </p><p>indifferent and poor workmen should be able to cherish the ambition of </p><p>rising. Indeed, the number of the latter being so much greater, it is </p><p>even more essential that the ranking system should not operate to </p><p>discourage them than that it should stimulate the others. It is to </p><p>this end that the grades are divided into classes. The grades as well </p><p>as the classes being made numerically equal at each regrading, there </p><p>is not at any time, counting out the officers and the unclassified and </p><p>apprentice grades, over one-ninth of the industrial army in the lowest </p><p>class, and most of this number are recent apprentices, all of whom </p><p>expect to rise. Those who remain during the entire term of service in </p><p>the lowest class are but a trifling fraction of the industrial army, </p><p>and likely to be as deficient in sensibility to their position as in </p><p>ability to better it. </p><p>"It is not even necessary that a worker should win promotion to a </p><p>higher grade to have at least a taste of glory. While promotion</p><p>requires a general excellence of record as a worker, honorable </p><p>mention and various sorts of prizes are awarded for excellence less </p><p>than sufficient for promotion, and also for special feats and single </p><p>performances in the various industries. There are many minor </p><p>distinctions of standing, not only within the grades but within the </p><p>classes, each of which acts as a spur to the efforts of a group. It is </p><p>intended that no form of merit shall wholly fail of recognition. </p><p>"As for actual neglect of work, positively bad work, or other overt </p><p>remissness on the part of men incapable of generous motives, the </p><p>discipline of the industrial army is far too strict to allow anything </p><p>whatever of the sort. A man able to do duty, and persistently </p><p>refusing, is sentenced to solitary imprisonment on bread and water </p><p>till he consents. </p><p>"The lowest grade of the officers of the industrial army, that of </p><p>assistant foremen or lieutenants, is appointed out of men who have </p><p>held their place for two years in the first class of the first grade. </p><p>Where this leaves too large a range of choice, only the first group of </p><p>this class are eligible. No one thus comes to the point of commanding </p><p>men until he is about thirty years old. After a man becomes an </p><p>officer, his rating of course no longer depends on the efficiency of </p><p>his own work, but on that of his men. The foremen are appointed from </p><p>among the assistant foremen, by the same exercise of discretion </p><p>limited to a small eligible class. In the appointments to the still </p><p>higher grades another principle is introduced, which it would take </p><p>too much time to explain now. </p><p>"Of course such a system of grading as I have described would have </p><p>been impracticable applied to the small industrial concerns of your </p><p>day, in some of which there were hardly enough employees to have left </p><p>one apiece for the classes. You must remember that, under the national </p><p>organization of labor, all industries are carried on by great bodies </p><p>of men, many of your farms or shops being combined as one. It is also </p><p>owing solely to the vast scale on which each industry is organized, </p><p>with co�rdinate establishments in every part of the country, that we </p><p>are able by exchanges and transfers to fit every man so nearly with </p><p>the sort of work he can do best. </p><p>"And now, Mr. West, I will leave it to you, on the bare outline of its </p><p>features which I have given, if those who need special incentives to </p><p>do their best are likely to lack them under our system. Does it not </p><p>seem to you that men who found themselves obliged, whether they wished </p><p>or not, to work, would under such a system be strongly impelled to do </p><p>their best?" </p><p>I replied that it seemed to me the incentives offered were, if any </p><p>objection were to be made, too strong; that the pace set for the young </p><p>men was too hot; and such, indeed, I would add with deference, still </p><p>remains my opinion, now that by longer residence among you I have </p><p>become better acquainted with the whole subject. </p><p>Dr. Leete, however, desired me to reflect, and I am ready to say that </p><p>it is perhaps a sufficient reply to my objection, that the worker's </p><p>livelihood is in no way dependent on his ranking, and anxiety for that </p><p>never embitters his disappointments; that the working hours are short, </p><p>the vacations regular, and that all emulation ceases at forty-five, </p><p>with the attainment of middle life. </p><p>"There are two or three other points I ought to refer to," he added, </p><p>"to prevent your getting mistaken impressions. In the first place, you </p><p>must understand that this system of preferment given the more </p><p>efficient workers over the less so, in no way contravenes the </p><p>fundamental idea of our social system, that all who do their best are </p><p>equally deserving, whether that best be great or small. I have shown </p><p>that the system is arranged to encourage the weaker as well as the </p><p>stronger with the hope of rising, while the fact that the stronger are </p><p>selected for the leaders is in no way a reflection upon the weaker, </p><p>but in the interest of the common weal. </p><p>"Do not imagine, either, because emulation is given free play as an </p><p>incentive under our system, that we deem it a motive likely to appeal </p><p>to the nobler sort of men, or worthy of them. Such as these find their </p><p>motives within, not without, and measure their duty by their own </p><p>endowments, not by those of others. So long as their achievement is </p><p>proportioned to their powers, they would consider it preposterous to </p><p>expect praise or blame because it chanced to be great or small. To </p><p>such natures emulation appears philosophically absurd, and despicable </p><p>in a moral aspect by its substitution of envy for admiration, and </p><p>exultation for regret, in one's attitude toward the successes and the </p><p>failures of others. </p><p>"But all men, even in the last year of the twentieth century, are not </p><p>of this high order, and the incentives to endeavor requisite for those </p><p>who are not must be of a sort adapted to their inferior natures. For </p><p>these, then, emulation of the keenest edge is provided as a constant </p><p>spur. Those who need this motive will feel it. Those who are above its </p><p>influence do not need it. </p><p>"I should not fail to mention," resumed the doctor, "that for those </p><p>too deficient in mental or bodily strength to be fairly graded with </p><p>the main body of workers, we have a separate grade, unconnected with </p><p>the others,--a sort of invalid corps, the members of which are </p><p>provided with a light class of tasks fitted to their strength. All our </p><p>sick in mind and body, all our deaf and dumb, and lame and blind and </p><p>crippled, and even our insane, belong to this invalid corps, and bear </p><p>its insignia. The strongest often do nearly a man's work, the </p><p>feeblest, of course, nothing; but none who can do anything are willing </p><p>quite to give up. In their lucid intervals, even our insane are eager </p><p>to do what they can." </p><p>"That is a pretty idea of the invalid corps," I said. "Even a </p><p>barbarian from the nineteenth century can appreciate that. It is a </p><p>very graceful way of disguising charity, and must be grateful to the </p><p>feelings of its recipients." </p><p>"Charity!" repeated Dr. Leete. "Did you suppose that we consider the </p><p>incapable class we are talking of objects of charity?" </p><p>"Why, naturally," I said, "inasmuch as they are incapable of </p><p>self-support." </p><p>But here the doctor took me up quickly. </p><p>"Who is capable of self-support?" he demanded. "There is no such thing </p><p>in a civilized society as self-support. In a state of society so </p><p>barbarous as not even to know family co�peration, each individual may </p><p>possibly support himself, though even then for a part of his life</p><p>only; but from the moment that men begin to live together, and </p><p>constitute even the rudest sort of society, self-support becomes </p><p>impossible. As men grow more civilized, and the subdivision of </p><p>occupations and services is carried out, a complex mutual dependence </p><p>becomes the universal rule. Every man, however solitary may seem his </p><p>occupation, is a member of a vast industrial partnership, as large as </p><p>the nation, as large as humanity. The necessity of mutual dependence </p><p>should imply the duty and guarantee of mutual support; and that it did </p><p>not in your day constituted the essential cruelty and unreason of your </p><p>system." </p><p>"That may all be so," I replied, "but it does not touch the case of </p><p>those who are unable to contribute anything to the product of </p><p>industry." </p><p>"Surely I told you this morning, at least I thought I did," replied </p><p>Dr. Leete, "that the right of a man to maintenance at the nation's </p><p>table depends on the fact that he is a man, and not on the amount of </p><p>health and strength he may have, so long as he does his best." </p><p>"You said so," I answered, "but I supposed the rule applied only to </p><p>the workers of different ability. Does it also hold of those who can </p><p>do nothing at all?" </p><p>"Are they not also men?" </p><p>"I am to understand, then, that the lame, the blind, the sick, and the </p><p>impotent, are as well off as the most efficient, and have the same </p><p>income?" </p><p>"Certainly," was the reply. </p><p>"The idea of charity on such a scale," I answered, "would have made </p><p>our most enthusiastic philanthropists gasp." </p><p>"If you had a sick brother at home," replied Dr. Leete, "unable to </p><p>work, would you feed him on less dainty food, and lodge and clothe him </p><p>more poorly, than yourself? More likely far, you would give him the </p><p>preference; nor would you think of calling it charity. Would not the </p><p>word, in that connection, fill you with indignation?" </p><p>"Of course," I replied; "but the cases are not parallel. There is a </p><p>sense, no doubt, in which all men are brothers; but this general sort </p><p>of brotherhood is not to be compared, except for rhetorical purposes, </p><p>to the brotherhood of blood, either as to its sentiment or its </p><p>obligations." </p><p>"There speaks the nineteenth century!" exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Ah, Mr. </p><p>West, there is no doubt as to the length of time that you slept. If I </p><p>were to give you, in one sentence, a key to what may seem the </p><p>mysteries of our civilization as compared with that of your age, I </p><p>should say that it is the fact that the solidarity of the race and the </p><p>brotherhood of man, which to you were but fine phrases, are, to our </p><p>thinking and feeling, ties as real and as vital as physical </p><p>fraternity. </p><p>"But even setting that consideration aside, I do not see why it so </p><p>surprises you that those who cannot work are conceded the full right </p><p>to live on the produce of those who can. Even in your day, the duty of</p><p>military service for the protection of the nation, to which our </p><p>industrial service corresponds, while obligatory on those able to </p><p>discharge it, did not operate to deprive of the privileges of </p><p>citizenship those who were unable. They stayed at home, and were </p><p>protected by those who fought, and nobody questioned their right to </p><p>be, or thought less of them. So, now, the requirement of industrial </p><p>service from those able to render it does not operate to deprive of </p><p>the privileges of citizenship, which now implies the citizen's </p><p>maintenance, him who cannot work. The worker is not a citizen because </p><p>he works, but works because he is a citizen. As you recognize the duty </p><p>of the strong to fight for the weak, we, now that fighting is gone by, </p><p>recognize his duty to work for him. </p><p>"A solution which leaves an unaccounted-for residuum is no solution at </p><p>all; and our solution of the problem of human society would have been </p><p>none at all had it left the lame, the sick, and the blind outside with </p><p>the beasts, to fare as they might. Better far have left the strong and </p><p>well unprovided for than these burdened ones, toward whom every heart </p><p>must yearn, and for whom ease of mind and body should be provided, if </p><p>for no others. Therefore it is, as I told you this morning, that the </p><p>title of every man, woman, and child to the means of existence rests </p><p>on no basis less plain, broad, and simple than the fact that they are </p><p>fellows of one race--members of one human family. The only coin </p><p>current is the image of God, and that is good for all we have. </p><p>"I think there is no feature of the civilization of your epoch so </p><p>repugnant to modern ideas as the neglect with which you treated your </p><p>dependent classes. Even if you had no pity, no feeling of brotherhood, </p><p>how was it that you did not see that you were robbing the incapable </p><p>class of their plain right in leaving them unprovided for?" </p><p>"I don't quite follow you there," I said. "I admit the claim of this </p><p>class to our pity, but how could they who produced nothing claim a </p><p>share of the product as a right?" </p><p>"How happened it," was Dr. Leete's reply, "that your workers were able </p><p>to produce more than so many savages would have done? Was it not </p><p>wholly on account of the heritage of the past knowledge and </p><p>achievements of the race, the machinery of society, thousands of years </p><p>in contriving, found by you ready-made to your hand? How did you come </p><p>to be possessors of this knowledge and this machinery, which represent </p><p>nine parts to one contributed by yourself in the value of your </p><p>product? You inherited it, did you not? And were not these others, </p><p>these unfortunate and crippled brothers whom you cast out, joint </p><p>inheritors, co-heirs with you? What did you do with their share? Did </p><p>you not rob them when you put them off with crusts, who were entitled </p><p>to sit with the heirs, and did you not add insult to robbery when you </p><p>called the crusts charity? </p><p>"Ah, Mr. West," Dr. Leete continued, as I did not respond, "what I do </p><p>not understand is, setting aside all considerations either of justice </p><p>or brotherly feeling toward the crippled and defective, how the </p><p>workers of your day could have had any heart for their work, knowing </p><p>that their children, or grand-children, if unfortunate, would be </p><p>deprived of the comforts and even necessities of life. It is a mystery </p><p>how men with children could favor a system under which they were </p><p>rewarded beyond those less endowed with bodily strength or mental </p><p>power. For, by the same discrimination by which the father profited, </p><p>the son, for whom he would give his life, being perchance weaker than</p><p>others, might be reduced to crusts and beggary. How men dared leave </p><p>children behind them, I have never been able to understand." </p><p> NOTE.--Although in his talk on the previous evening Dr. Leete</p><p> had emphasized the pains taken to enable every man to</p><p> ascertain and follow his natural bent in choosing an</p><p> occupation, it was not till I learned that the worker's</p><p> income is the same in all occupations that I realized how</p><p> absolutely he may be counted on to do so, and thus, by</p><p> selecting the harness which sets most lightly on himself,</p><p> find that in which he can pull best. The failure of my age in</p><p> any systematic or effective way to develop and utilize the</p><p> natural aptitudes of men for the industries and intellectual</p><p> avocations was one of the great wastes, as well as one of the</p><p> most common causes of unhappiness in that time. The vast</p><p> majority of my contemporaries, though nominally free to do</p><p> so, never really chose their occupations at all, but were</p><p> forced by circumstances into work for which they were</p><p> relatively inefficient, because not naturally fitted for it.</p><p> The rich, in this respect, had little advantage over the</p><p> poor. The latter, indeed, being generally deprived of</p><p> education, had no opportunity even to ascertain the natural</p><p> aptitudes they might have, and on account of their poverty</p><p> were unable to develop them by cultivation even when</p><p> ascertained. The liberal and technical professions, except by</p><p> favorable accident, were shut to them, to their own great</p><p> loss and that of the nation. On the other hand, the</p><p> well-to-do, although they could command education and</p><p> opportunity, were scarcely less hampered by social prejudice,</p><p> which forbade them to pursue manual avocations, even when</p><p> adapted to them, and destined them, whether fit or unfit, to</p><p> the professions, thus wasting many an excellent</p><p> handicraftsman. Mercenary considerations, tempting men to</p><p> pursue money-making occupations for which they were unfit,</p><p> instead of less remunerative employments for which they were</p><p> fit, were responsible for another vast perversion of talent.</p><p> All these things now are changed. Equal education and</p><p> opportunity must needs bring to light whatever aptitudes a</p><p> man has, and neither social prejudices nor mercenary</p><p> considerations hamper him in the choice of his life work.</p><p>CHAPTER XIII. </p><p>As Edith had promised he should do, Dr. Leete accompanied me to my </p><p>bedroom when I retired, to instruct me as to the adjustment of the </p><p>musical telephone. He showed how, by turning a screw, the volume of </p><p>the music could be made to fill the room, or die away to an echo so </p><p>faint and far that one could scarcely be sure whether he heard or </p><p>imagined it. If, of two persons side by side, one desired to listen to </p><p>music and the other to sleep, it could be made audible to one and </p><p>inaudible to another. </p><p>"I should strongly advise you to sleep if you can to-night, Mr. West, </p><p>in preference to listening to the finest tunes in the world," the </p><p>doctor said, after explaining these points. "In the trying experience</p><p>you are just now passing through, sleep is a nerve tonic for which </p><p>there is no substitute." </p><p>Mindful of what had happened to me that very morning, I promised to </p><p>heed his counsel. </p><p>"Very well," he said, "then I will set the telephone at eight </p><p>o'clock." </p><p>"What do you mean?" I asked. </p><p>He explained that, by a clock-work combination, a person could arrange </p><p>to be awakened at any hour by the music. </p><p>It began to appear, as has since fully proved to be the case, that I </p><p>had left my tendency to insomnia behind me with the other discomforts </p><p>of existence in the nineteenth century; for though I took no sleeping </p><p>draught this time, yet, as the night before, I had no sooner touched </p><p>the pillow than I was asleep. </p><p>I dreamed that I sat on the throne of the Abencerrages in the </p><p>banqueting hall of the Alhambra, feasting my lords and generals, who </p><p>next day were to follow the crescent against the Christian dogs of </p><p>Spain. The air, cooled by the spray of fountains, was heavy with the </p><p>scent of flowers. A band of Nautch girls, round-limbed and </p><p>luscious-lipped, danced with voluptuous grace to the music of brazen </p><p>and stringed instruments. Looking up to the latticed galleries, one </p><p>caught a gleam now and then from the eye of some beauty of the royal </p><p>harem, looking down upon the assembled flower of Moorish chivalry. </p><p>Louder and louder clashed the cymbals, wilder and wilder grew the </p><p>strain, till the blood of the desert race could no longer resist the </p><p>martial delirium, and the swart nobles leaped to their feet; a </p><p>thousand scimitars were bared, and the cry, "Allah il Allah!" shook </p><p>the hall and awoke me, to find it broad daylight, and the room </p><p>tingling with the electric music of the "Turkish Reveille." </p><p>At the breakfast-table, when I told my host of my morning's </p><p>experience, I learned that it was not a mere chance that the piece of </p><p>music which awakened me was a reveille. The airs played at one of the </p><p>halls during the waking hours of the morning were always of an </p><p>inspiring type. </p><p>"By the way," I said, "I have not thought to ask you anything about </p><p>the state of Europe. Have the societies of the Old World also been </p><p>remodeled?" </p><p>"Yes," replied Dr. Leete, "the great nations of Europe as well as </p><p>Australia, Mexico, and parts of South America, are now organized </p><p>industrially like the United States, which was the pioneer of the </p><p>evolution. The peaceful relations of these nations are assured by a </p><p>loose form of federal union of world-wide extent. An international </p><p>council regulates the mutual intercourse and commerce of the members </p><p>of the union and their joint policy toward the more backward races, </p><p>which are gradually being educated up to civilized institutions. </p><p>Complete autonomy within its own limits is enjoyed by every nation." </p><p>"How do you carry on commerce without money?" I said. "In trading with </p><p>other nations, you must use some sort of money, although you dispense </p><p>with it in the internal affairs of the nation."</p><p>"Oh, no; money is as superfluous in our foreign as in our internal </p><p>relations. When foreign commerce was conducted by private enterprise, </p><p>money was necessary to adjust it on account of the multifarious </p><p>complexity of the transactions; but nowadays it is a function of the </p><p>nations as units. There are thus only a dozen or so merchants in the </p><p>world, and their business being supervised by the international </p><p>council, a simple system of book accounts serves perfectly to regulate </p><p>their dealings. Customs duties of every sort are of course </p><p>superfluous. A nation simply does not import what its government does </p><p>not think requisite for the general interest. Each nation has a bureau </p><p>of foreign exchange, which manages its trading. For example, the </p><p>American bureau, estimating such and such quantities of French goods </p><p>necessary to America for a given year, sends the order to the French </p><p>bureau, which in turn sends its order to our bureau. The same is done </p><p>mutually by all the nations." </p><p>"But how are the prices of foreign goods settled, since there is no </p><p>competition?" </p><p>"The price at which one nation supplies another with goods," replied </p><p>Dr. Leete, "must be that at which it supplies its own citizens. So you </p><p>see there is no danger of misunderstanding. Of course no nation is </p><p>theoretically bound to supply another with the product of its own </p><p>labor, but it is for the interest of all to exchange some commodities. </p><p>If a nation is regularly supplying another with certain goods, notice </p><p>is required from either side of any important change in the relation." </p><p>"But what if a nation, having a monopoly of some natural product, </p><p>should refuse to supply it to the others, or to one of them?" </p><p>"Such a case has never occurred, and could not without doing the </p><p>refusing party vastly more harm than the others," replied Dr. Leete. </p><p>"In the first place, no favoritism could be legally shown. The law </p><p>requires that each nation shall deal with the others, in all respects, </p><p>on exactly the same footing. Such a course as you suggest would cut </p><p>off the nation adopting it from the remainder of the earth for all </p><p>purposes whatever. The contingency is one that need not give us much </p><p>anxiety." </p><p>"But," said I, "supposing a nation, having a natural monopoly in some </p><p>product of which it exports more than it consumes, should put the </p><p>price away up, and thus, without cutting off the supply, make a profit </p><p>out of its neighbors' necessities? Its own citizens would of course </p><p>have to pay the higher price on that commodity, but as a body would </p><p>make more out of foreigners than they would be out of pocket </p><p>themselves." </p><p>"When you come to know how prices of all commodities are determined </p><p>nowadays, you will perceive how impossible it is that they could be </p><p>altered, except with reference to the amount or arduousness of the </p><p>work required respectively to produce them," was Dr. Leete's reply. </p><p>"This principle is an international as well as a national guarantee; </p><p>but even without it the sense of community of interest, international </p><p>as well as national, and the conviction of the folly of selfishness, </p><p>are too deep nowadays to render possible such a piece of sharp </p><p>practice as you apprehend. You must understand that we all look </p><p>forward to an eventual unification of the world as one nation. That, </p><p>no doubt, will be the ultimate form of society, and will realize</p><p>certain economic advantages over the present federal system of </p><p>autonomous nations. Meanwhile, however, the present system works so </p><p>nearly perfectly that we are quite content to leave to posterity the </p><p>completion of the scheme. There are, indeed, some who hold that it </p><p>never will be completed, on the ground that the federal plan is not </p><p>merely a provisional solution of the problem of human society, but the </p><p>best ultimate solution." </p><p>"How do you manage," I asked, "when the books of any two nations do </p><p>not balance? Supposing we import more from France than we export to </p><p>her." </p><p>"At the end of each year," replied the doctor, "the books of every </p><p>nation are examined. If France is found in our debt, probably we are </p><p>in the debt of some nation which owes France, and so on with all the </p><p>nations. The balances that remain after the accounts have been cleared </p><p>by the international council should not be large under our system. </p><p>Whatever they may be, the council requires them to be settled every </p><p>few years, and may require their settlement at any time if they are </p><p>getting too large; for it is not intended that any nation shall run </p><p>largely in debt to another, lest feelings unfavorable to amity should </p><p>be engendered. To guard further against this, the international </p><p>council inspects the commodities interchanged by the nations, to see </p><p>that they are of perfect quality." </p><p>"But what are the balances finally settled with, seeing that you have </p><p>no money?" </p><p>"In national staples; a basis of agreement as to what staples shall be </p><p>accepted, and in what proportions, for settlement of accounts, being a </p><p>preliminary to trade relations." </p><p>"Emigration is another point I want to ask you about," said I. "With </p><p>every nation organized as a close industrial partnership, monopolizing </p><p>all means of production in the country, the emigrant, even if he were </p><p>permitted to land, would starve. I suppose there is no emigration </p><p>nowadays." </p><p>"On the contrary, there is constant emigration, by which I suppose you </p><p>mean removal to foreign countries for permanent residence," replied </p><p>Dr. Leete. "It is arranged on a simple international arrangement of </p><p>indemnities. For example, if a man at twenty-one emigrates from </p><p>England to America, England loses all the expense of his maintenance </p><p>and education, and America gets a workman for nothing. America </p><p>accordingly makes England an allowance. The same principle, varied to </p><p>suit the case, applies generally. If the man is near the term of his </p><p>labor when he emigrates, the country receiving him has the allowance. </p><p>As to imbecile persons, it is deemed best that each nation should be </p><p>responsible for its own, and the emigration of such must be under </p><p>full guarantees of support by his own nation. Subject to these </p><p>regulations, the right of any man to emigrate at any time is </p><p>unrestricted." </p><p>"But how about mere pleasure trips; tours of observation? How can a </p><p>stranger travel in a country whose people do not receive money, and </p><p>are themselves supplied with the means of life on a basis not extended </p><p>to him? His own credit card cannot, of course, be good in other lands. </p><p>How does he pay his way?" </p><p>"An American credit card," replied Dr. Leete, "is just as good in </p><p>Europe as American gold used to be, and on precisely the same </p><p>condition, namely, that it be exchanged into the currency of the </p><p>country you are traveling in. An American in Berlin takes his credit </p><p>card to the local office of the international council, and receives in </p><p>exchange for the whole or part of it a German credit card, the amount </p><p>being charged against the United States in favor of Germany on the </p><p>international account." </p><p>* * * * *</p><p>"Perhaps Mr. West would like to dine at the Elephant to-day," said </p><p>Edith, as we left the table. </p><p>"That is the name we give to the general dining-house of our ward," </p><p>explained her father. "Not only is our cooking done at the public </p><p>kitchens, as I told you last night, but the service and quality of the </p><p>meals are much more satisfactory if taken at the dining-house. The </p><p>two minor meals of the day are usually taken at home, as not worth the </p><p>trouble of going out; but it is general to go out to dine. We have not </p><p>done so since you have been with us, from a notion that it would be </p><p>better to wait till you had become a little more familiar with our </p><p>ways. What do you think? Shall we take dinner at the dining-house </p><p>to-day?" </p><p>I said that I should be very much pleased to do so. </p><p>Not long after, Edith came to me, smiling, and said:-- </p><p>"Last night, as I was thinking what I could do to make you feel at </p><p>home until you came to be a little more used to us and our ways, an </p><p>idea occurred to me. What would you say if I were to introduce you to </p><p>some very nice people of your own times, whom I am sure you used to be </p><p>well acquainted with?" </p><p>I replied, rather vaguely, that it would certainly be very agreeable, </p><p>but I did not see how she was going to manage it. </p><p>"Come with me," was her smiling reply, "and see if I am not as good as </p><p>my word." </p><p>My susceptibility to surprise had been pretty well exhausted by the </p><p>numerous shocks it had received, but it was with some wonderment that </p><p>I followed her into a room which I had not before entered. It was a </p><p>small, cosy apartment, walled with cases filled with books. </p><p>"Here are your friends," said Edith, indicating one of the cases, and </p><p>as my eye glanced over the names on the backs of the volumes, </p><p>Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, Defoe, Dickens, </p><p>Thackeray, Hugo, Hawthorne, Irving, and a score of other great writers </p><p>of my time and all time, I understood her meaning. She had indeed made </p><p>good her promise in a sense compared with which its literal </p><p>fulfillment would have been a disappointment. She had introduced me to </p><p>a circle of friends whom the century that had elapsed since last I </p><p>communed with them had aged as little as it had myself. Their spirit </p><p>was as high, their wit as keen, their laughter and their tears as </p><p>contagious, as when their speech had whiled away the hours of a former </p><p>century. Lonely I was not and could not be more, with this goodly </p><p>companionship, however wide the gulf of years that gaped between me</p><p>and my old life. </p><p>"You are glad I brought you here," exclaimed Edith, radiant, as she </p><p>read in my face the success of her experiment. "It was a good idea, </p><p>was it not, Mr. West? How stupid in me not to think of it before! I </p><p>will leave you now with your old friends, for I know there will be no </p><p>company for you like them just now; but remember you must not let old </p><p>friends make you quite forget new ones!" and with that smiling caution </p><p>she left me. </p><p>Attracted by the most familiar of the names before me, I laid my hand </p><p>on a volume of Dickens, and sat down to read. He had been my prime </p><p>favorite among the book-writers of the century,--I mean the nineteenth </p><p>century,--and a week had rarely passed in my old life during which I </p><p>had not taken up some volume of his works to while away an idle hour. </p><p>Any volume with which I had been familiar would have produced an </p><p>extraordinary impression, read under my present circumstances, but my </p><p>exceptional familiarity with Dickens, and his consequent power to call </p><p>up the associations of my former life, gave to his writings an effect </p><p>no others could have had, to intensify, by force of contrast, my </p><p>appreciation of the strangeness of my present environment. However new </p><p>and astonishing one's surroundings, the tendency is to become a part </p><p>of them so soon that almost from the first the power to see them </p><p>objectively and fully measure their strangeness, is lost. That power, </p><p>already dulled in my case, the pages of Dickens restored by carrying </p><p>me back through their associations to the standpoint of my former </p><p>life. With a clearness which I had not been able before to attain, I </p><p>saw now the past and present, like contrasting pictures, side by side. </p><p>The genius of the great novelist of the nineteenth century, like that </p><p>of Homer, might indeed defy time; but the setting of his pathetic </p><p>tales, the misery of the poor, the wrongs of power, the pitiless </p><p>cruelty of the system of society, had passed away as utterly as Circe </p><p>and the sirens, Charybdis and Cyclops. </p><p>During the hour or two that I sat there with Dickens open before me, I </p><p>did not actually read more than a couple of pages. Every paragraph, </p><p>every phrase, brought up some new aspect of the world-transformation </p><p>which had taken place, and led my thoughts on long and widely </p><p>ramifying excursions. As meditating thus in Dr. Leete's library I </p><p>gradually attained a more clear and coherent idea of the prodigious </p><p>spectacle which I had been so strangely enabled to view, I was filled </p><p>with a deepening wonder at the seeming capriciousness of the fate that </p><p>had given to one who so little deserved it, or seemed in any way set </p><p>apart for it, the power alone among his contemporaries to stand upon </p><p>the earth in this latter day. I had neither foreseen the new world nor </p><p>toiled for it, as many about me had done regardless of the scorn of </p><p>fools or the misconstruction of the good. Surely it would have been </p><p>more in accordance with the fitness of things had one of those </p><p>prophetic and strenuous souls been enabled to see the travail of his </p><p>soul and be satisfied; he, for example, a thousand times rather than </p><p>I, who, having beheld in a vision the world I looked on, sang of it in </p><p>words that again and again, during these last wondrous days, had rung </p><p>in my mind:-- </p><p> For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see.</p><p> Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;</p><p> Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled.</p><p> In the Parliament of man, the federation of the world.</p><p> Then the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,</p><p> And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.</p><p> For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,</p><p> And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.</p><p>What though, in his old age, he momentarily lost faith in his own </p><p>prediction, as prophets in their hours of depression and doubt </p><p>generally do; the words had remained eternal testimony to the seership </p><p>of a poet's heart, the insight that is given to faith. </p><p>I was still in the library when some hours later Dr. Leete sought me </p><p>there. "Edith told me of her idea," he said, "and I thought it an </p><p>excellent one. I had a little curiosity what writer you would first </p><p>turn to. Ah, Dickens! You admired him, then! That is where we moderns </p><p>agree with you. Judged by our standards, he overtops all the writers </p><p>of his age, not because his literary genius was highest, but because </p><p>his great heart beat for the poor, because he made the cause of the </p><p>victims of society his own, and devoted his pen to exposing its </p><p>cruelties and shams. No man of his time did so much as he to turn </p><p>men's minds to the wrong and wretchedness of the old order of things, </p><p>and open their eyes to the necessity of the great change that was </p><p>coming, although he himself did not clearly foresee it." </p><p>CHAPTER XIV. </p><p>A heavy rainstorm came up during the day, and I had concluded that the </p><p>condition of the streets would be such that my hosts would have to </p><p>give up the idea of going out to dinner, although the dining-hall I </p><p>had understood to be quite near. I was much surprised when at the </p><p>dinner hour the ladies appeared prepared to go out, but without either </p><p>rubbers or umbrellas. </p><p>The mystery was explained when we found ourselves on the street, for a </p><p>continuous waterproof covering had been let down so as to inclose the </p><p>sidewalk and turn it into a well lighted and perfectly dry corridor, </p><p>which was filled with a stream of ladies and gentlemen dressed for </p><p>dinner. At the corners the entire open space was similarly roofed in. </p><p>Edith Leete, with whom I walked, seemed much interested in learning </p><p>what appeared to be entirely new to her, that in the stormy weather </p><p>the streets of the Boston of my day had been impassable, except to </p><p>persons protected by umbrellas, boots, and heavy clothing. "Were </p><p>sidewalk coverings not used at all?" she asked. They were used, I </p><p>explained, but in a scattered and utterly unsystematic way, being </p><p>private enterprises. She said to me that at the present time all the </p><p>streets were provided against inclement weather in the manner I saw, </p><p>the apparatus being rolled out of the way when it was unnecessary. She </p><p>intimated that it would be considered an extraordinary imbecility to </p><p>permit the weather to have any effect on the social movements of the </p><p>people. </p><p>Dr. Leete, who was walking ahead, overhearing something of our talk, </p><p>turned to say that the difference between the age of individualism and </p><p>that of concert was well characterized by the fact that, in the </p><p>nineteenth century, when it rained, the people of Boston put up three </p><p>hundred thousand umbrellas over as many heads, and in the twentieth </p><p>century they put up one umbrella over all the heads. </p><p>As we walked on, Edith said, "The private umbrella is father's </p><p>favorite figure to illustrate the old way when everybody lived for </p><p>himself and his family. There is a nineteenth century painting at the </p><p>Art Gallery representing a crowd of people in the rain, each one </p><p>holding his umbrella over himself and his wife, and giving his </p><p>neighbors the drippings, which he claims must have been meant by the </p><p>artist as a satire on his times." </p><p>We now entered a large building into which a stream of people was </p><p>pouring. I could not see the front, owing to the awning, but, if in </p><p>correspondence with the interior, which was even finer than the store </p><p>I visited the day before, it would have been magnificent. My companion </p><p>said that the sculptured group over the entrance was especially </p><p>admired. Going up a grand staircase we walked some distance along a </p><p>broad corridor with many doors opening upon it. At one of these, which </p><p>bore my host's name, we turned in, and I found myself in an elegant </p><p>dining-room containing a table for four. Windows opened on a courtyard </p><p>where a fountain played to a great height and music made the air </p><p>electric. </p><p>"You seem at home here," I said, as we seated ourselves at table, and </p><p>Dr. Leete touched an annunciator. </p><p>"This is, in fact, a part of our house, slightly detached from the </p><p>rest," he replied. "Every family in the ward has a room set apart in </p><p>this great building for its permanent and exclusive use for a small </p><p>annual rental. For transient guests and individuals there is </p><p>accommodation on another floor. If we expect to dine here, we put in </p><p>our orders the night before, selecting anything in market, according </p><p>to the daily reports in the papers. The meal is as expensive or as </p><p>simple as we please, though of course everything is vastly cheaper as </p><p>well as better than it would be if prepared at home. There is actually </p><p>nothing which our people take more interest in than the perfection of </p><p>the catering and cooking done for them, and I admit that we are a </p><p>little vain of the success that has been attained by this branch of </p><p>the service. Ah, my dear Mr. West, though other aspects of your </p><p>civilization were more tragical, I can imagine that none could have </p><p>been more depressing than the poor dinners you had to eat, that is, </p><p>all of you who had not great wealth." </p><p>"You would have found none of us disposed to disagree with you on that </p><p>point," I said. </p><p>The waiter, a fine-looking young fellow, wearing a slightly </p><p>distinctive uniform, now made his appearance. I observed him closely, </p><p>as it was the first time I had been able to study particularly the </p><p>bearing of one of the enlisted members of the industrial army. This </p><p>young man, I knew from what I had been told, must be highly educated, </p><p>and the equal, socially and in all respects, of those he served. But </p><p>it was perfectly evident that to neither side was the situation in the </p><p>slightest degree embarrassing. Dr. Leete addressed the young man in a </p><p>tone devoid, of course, as any gentleman's would be, of</p><p>superciliousness, but at the same time not in any way deprecatory, </p><p>while the manner of the young man was simply that of a person intent </p><p>on discharging correctly the task he was engaged in, equally without </p><p>familiarity or obsequiousness. It was, in fact, the manner of a </p><p>soldier on duty, but without the military stiffness. As the youth left </p><p>the room, I said, "I cannot get over my wonder at seeing a young man </p><p>like that serving so contentedly in a menial position." </p><p>"What is that word 'menial'? I never heard it," said Edith. </p><p>"It is obsolete now," remarked her father. "If I understand it </p><p>rightly, it applied to persons who performed particularly disagreeable </p><p>and unpleasant tasks for others, and carried with it an implication of </p><p>contempt. Was it not so, Mr. West?" </p><p>"That is about it," I said. "Personal service, such as waiting on </p><p>tables, was considered menial, and held in such contempt, in my day, </p><p>that persons of culture and refinement would suffer hardship before </p><p>condescending to it." </p><p>"What a strangely artificial idea," exclaimed Mrs. Leete, wonderingly. </p><p>"And yet these services had to be rendered," said Edith. </p><p>"Of course," I replied. "But we imposed them on the poor, and those </p><p>who had no alternative but starvation." </p><p>"And increased the burden you imposed on them by adding your </p><p>contempt," remarked Dr. Leete. </p><p>"I don't think I clearly understand," said Edith. "Do you mean that </p><p>you permitted people to do things for you which you despised them for </p><p>doing, or that you accepted services from them which you would have </p><p>been unwilling to render them? You can't surely mean that, Mr. West?" </p><p>I was obliged to tell her that the fact was just as she had stated. </p><p>Dr. Leete, however, came to my relief. </p><p>"To understand why Edith is surprised," he said, "you must know that </p><p>nowadays it is an axiom of ethics that to accept a service from </p><p>another which we would be unwilling to return in kind, if need were, </p><p>is like borrowing with the intention of not repaying, while to enforce </p><p>such a service by taking advantage of the poverty or necessity of a </p><p>person would be an outrage like forcible robbery. It is the worst </p><p>thing about any system which divides men, or allows them to be </p><p>divided, into classes and castes, that it weakens the sense of a </p><p>common humanity. Unequal distribution of wealth, and, still more </p><p>effectually, unequal opportunities of education and culture, divided </p><p>society in your day into classes which in many respects regarded each </p><p>other as distinct races. There is not, after all, such a difference as </p><p>might appear between our ways of looking at this question of service. </p><p>Ladies and gentlemen of the cultured class in your day would no more </p><p>have permitted persons of their own class to render them services they </p><p>would scorn to return than we would permit anybody to do so. The poor </p><p>and the uncultured, however, they looked upon as of another kind from </p><p>themselves. The equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture which </p><p>all persons now enjoy have simply made us all members of one class, </p><p>which corresponds to the most fortunate class with you. Until this </p><p>equality of condition had come to pass, the idea of the solidarity of</p><p>humanity, the brother hood of all men, could never have become the </p><p>real conviction and practical principle of action it is nowadays. In </p><p>your day the same phrases were indeed used, but they were phrases </p><p>merely." </p><p>"Do the waiters, also, volunteer?" </p><p>"No," replied Dr. Leete. "The waiters are young men in the </p><p>unclassified grade of the industrial army who are assignable to all </p><p>sorts of miscellaneous occupations not requiring special skill. </p><p>Waiting on table is one of these, and every young recruit is given a </p><p>taste of it. I myself served as a waiter for several months in this </p><p>very dining-house some forty years ago. Once more you must remember </p><p>that there is recognized no sort of difference between the dignity of </p><p>the different sorts of work required by the nation. The individual is </p><p>never regarded, nor regards himself, as the servant of those he </p><p>serves, nor is he in any way dependent upon them. It is always the </p><p>nation which he is serving. No difference is recognized between a </p><p>waiter's functions and those of any other worker. The fact that his is </p><p>a personal service is indifferent from our point of view. So is a </p><p>doctor's. I should as soon expect our waiter to-day to look down on me </p><p>because I served him as a doctor, as think of looking down on him </p><p>because he serves me as a waiter." </p><p>After dinner my entertainers conducted me about the building, of which </p><p>the extent, the magnificent architecture and richness of </p><p>embellishment, astonished me. It seemed that it was not merely a </p><p>dining-hall, but likewise a great pleasure-house and social rendezvous </p><p>of the quarter, and no appliance of entertainment or recreation seemed </p><p>lacking. </p><p>"You find illustrated here," said Dr. Leete, when I had expressed my </p><p>admiration, "what I said to you in our first conversation, when you </p><p>were looking out over the city, as to the splendor of our public and </p><p>common life as compared with the simplicity of our private and home </p><p>life, and the contrast which, in this respect, the twentieth bears to </p><p>the nineteenth century. To save ourselves useless burdens, we have as </p><p>little gear about us at home as is consistent with comfort, but the </p><p>social side of our life is ornate and luxurious beyond anything the </p><p>world ever knew before. All the industrial and professional guilds </p><p>have clubhouses as extensive as this, as well as country, mountain, </p><p>and seaside houses for sport and rest in vacations." </p><p> NOTE. In the latter part of the nineteenth century it became</p><p> a practice of needy young men at some of the colleges of the</p><p> country to earn a little money for their term bills by</p><p> serving as waiters on tables at hotels during the long summer</p><p> vacation. It was claimed, in reply to critics who expressed</p><p> the prejudices of the time in asserting that persons</p><p> voluntarily following such an occupation could not be</p><p> gentlemen, that they were entitled to praise for vindicating,</p><p> by their example, the dignity of all honest and necessary</p><p> labor. The use of this argument illustrates a common</p><p> confusion in thought on the part of my former contemporaries.</p><p> The business of waiting on tables was in no more need of</p><p> defense than most of the other ways of getting a living in</p><p> that day, but to talk of dignity attaching to labor of any</p><p> sort under the system then prevailing was absurd. There is no</p><p> way in which selling labor for the highest price it will</p><p> fetch is more dignified than selling goods for what can be</p><p> got. Both were commercial transactions to be judged by the</p><p> commercial standard. By setting a price in money on his</p><p> service, the worker accepted the money measure for it, and</p><p> renounced all clear claim to be judged by any other. The</p><p> sordid taint which this necessity imparted to the noblest and</p><p> the highest sorts of service was bitterly resented by</p><p> generous souls, but there was no evading it. There was no</p><p> exemption, however transcendent the quality of one's service,</p><p> from the necessity of haggling for its price in the</p><p> market-place. The physician must sell his healing and the</p><p> apostle his preaching like the rest. The prophet, who had</p><p> guessed the meaning of God, must dicker for the price of the</p><p> revelation, and the poet hawk his visions in printers' row.</p><p> If I were asked to name the most distinguishing felicity of</p><p> this age, as compared to that in which I first saw the light,</p><p> I should say that to me it seems to consist in the dignity</p><p> you have given to labor by refusing to set a price upon it</p><p> and abolishing the market-place forever. By requiring of</p><p> every man his best you have made God his task-master, and by</p><p> making honor the sole reward of achievement you have imparted</p><p> to all service the distinction peculiar in my day to the</p><p> soldier's.</p><p>CHAPTER XV. </p><p>When, in the course of our tour of inspection, we came to the library, </p><p>we succumbed to the temptation of the luxurious leather chairs with </p><p>which it was furnished, and sat down in one of the book-lined alcoves </p><p>to rest and chat awhile.[3] </p><p>"Edith tells me that you have been in the library all the morning," </p><p>said Mrs. Leete. "Do you know, it seems to me, Mr. West, that you are </p><p>the most enviable of mortals." </p><p>"I should like to know just why," I replied. </p><p>"Because the books of the last hundred years will be new to you," she </p><p>answered. "You will have so much of the most absorbing literature to </p><p>read as to leave you scarcely time for meals these five years to come. </p><p>Ah, what would I give if I had not already read Berrian's novels." </p><p>"Or Nesmyth's, mamma," added Edith. </p><p>"Yes, or Oates' poems, or 'Past and Present,' or, 'In the Beginning,' </p><p>or,--oh, I could name a dozen books, each worth a year of one's </p><p>life," declared Mrs. Leete, enthusiastically. </p><p>"I judge, then, that there has been some notable literature produced </p><p>in this century." </p><p>"Yes," said Dr. Leete. "It has been an era of unexampled intellectual </p><p>splendor. Probably humanity never before passed through a moral and </p><p>material evolution, at once so vast in its scope and brief in its time </p><p>of accomplishment, as that from the old order to the new in the early</p><p>part of this century. When men came to realize the greatness of the </p><p>felicity which had befallen them, and that the change through which </p><p>they had passed was not merely an improvement in details of their </p><p>condition, but the rise of the race to a new plane of existence with </p><p>an illimitable vista of progress, their minds were affected in all </p><p>their faculties with a stimulus, of which the outburst of the medi�val </p><p>renaissance offers a suggestion but faint indeed. There ensued an era </p><p>of mechanical invention, scientific discovery, art, musical and </p><p>literary productiveness to which no previous age of the world offers </p><p>anything comparable." </p><p>"By the way," said I, "talking of literature, how are books published </p><p>now? Is that also done by the nation?" </p><p>"Certainly." </p><p>"But how do you manage it? Does the government publish everything that </p><p>is brought it as a matter of course, at the public expense, or does </p><p>it exercise a censorship and print only what it approves?" </p><p>"Neither way. The printing department has no censorial powers. It is </p><p>bound to print all that is offered it, but prints it only on condition </p><p>that the author defray the first cost out of his credit. He must pay </p><p>for the privilege of the public ear, and if he has any message worth </p><p>hearing we consider that he will be glad to do it. Of course, if </p><p>incomes were unequal, as in the old times, this rule would enable only </p><p>the rich to be authors, but the resources of citizens being equal, it </p><p>merely measures the strength of the author's motive. The cost of an </p><p>edition of an average book can be saved out of a year's credit by the </p><p>practice of economy and some sacrifices. The book, on being published, </p><p>is placed on sale by the nation." </p><p>"The author receiving a royalty on the sales as with us, I suppose," I </p><p>suggested. </p><p>"Not as with you, certainly," replied Dr. Leete, "but nevertheless in </p><p>one way. The price of every book is made up of the cost of its </p><p>publication with a royalty for the author. The author fixes this </p><p>royalty at any figure he pleases. Of course if he puts it unreasonably </p><p>high it is his own loss, for the book will not sell. The amount of </p><p>this royalty is set to his credit and he is discharged from other </p><p>service to the nation for so long a period as this credit at the rate </p><p>of allowance for the support of citizens shall suffice to support him. </p><p>If his book be moderately successful, he has thus a furlough for </p><p>several months, a year, two or three years, and if he in the mean time </p><p>produces other successful work, the remission of service is extended </p><p>so far as the sale of that may justify. An author of much acceptance </p><p>succeeds in supporting himself by his pen during the entire period of </p><p>service, and the degree of any writer's literary ability, as </p><p>determined by the popular voice, is thus the measure of the </p><p>opportunity given him to devote his time to literature. In this </p><p>respect the outcome of our system is not very dissimilar to that of </p><p>yours, but there are two notable differences. In the first place, the </p><p>universally high level of education nowadays gives the popular verdict </p><p>a conclusiveness on the real merit of literary work which in your day </p><p>it was as far as possible from having. In the second place, there is </p><p>no such thing now as favoritism of any sort to interfere with the </p><p>recognition of true merit. Every author has precisely the same </p><p>facilities for bringing his work before the popular tribunal. To judge</p><p>from the complaints of the writers of your day, this absolute equality </p><p>of opportunity would have been greatly prized." </p><p>"In the recognition of merit in other fields of original genius, such </p><p>as music, art, invention, design," I said, "I suppose you follow a </p><p>similar principle." </p><p>"Yes," he replied, "although the details differ. In art, for example, </p><p>as in literature, the people are the sole judges. They vote upon the </p><p>acceptance of statues and paintings for the public buildings, and </p><p>their favorable verdict carries with it the artist's remission from </p><p>other tasks to devote himself to his vocation. On copies of his work </p><p>disposed of, he also derives the same advantage as the author on sales </p><p>of his books. In all these lines of original genius the plan pursued </p><p>is the same,--to offer a free field to aspirants, and as soon as </p><p>exceptional talent is recognized to release it from all trammels and </p><p>let it have free course. The remission of other service in these cases </p><p>is not intended as a gift or reward, but as the means of obtaining </p><p>more and higher service. Of course there are various literary, art, </p><p>and scientific institutes to which membership comes to the famous and </p><p>is greatly prized. The highest of all honors in the nation, higher </p><p>than the presidency, which calls merely for good sense and devotion to </p><p>duty, is the red ribbon awarded by the vote of the people to the great </p><p>authors, artists, engineers, physicians, and inventors of the </p><p>generation. Not over a certain number wear it at any one time, though </p><p>every bright young fellow in the country loses innumerable nights' </p><p>sleep dreaming of it. I even did myself." </p><p>"Just as if mamma and I would have thought any more of you with it," </p><p>exclaimed Edith; "not that it isn't, of course, a very fine thing to </p><p>have." </p><p>"You had no choice, my dear, but to take your father as you found him </p><p>and make the best of him," Dr. Leete replied; "but as for your </p><p>mother, there, she would never have had me if I had not assured her </p><p>that I was bound to get the red ribbon or at least the blue." </p><p>On this extravagance Mrs. Leete's only comment was a smile. </p><p>"How about periodicals and newspapers?" I said. "I won't deny that </p><p>your book publishing system is a considerable improvement on ours, </p><p>both as to its tendency to encourage a real literary vocation, and, </p><p>quite as important, to discourage mere scribblers; but I don't see how </p><p>it can be made to apply to magazines and newspapers. It is very well </p><p>to make a man pay for publishing a book, because the expense will be </p><p>only occasional; but no man could afford the expense of publishing a </p><p>newspaper every day in the year. It took the deep pockets of our </p><p>private capitalists to do that, and often exhausted even them before </p><p>the returns came in. If you have newspapers at all, they must, I </p><p>fancy, be published by the government at the public expense, with </p><p>government editors, reflecting government opinions. Now, if your </p><p>system is so perfect that there is never anything to criticise in the </p><p>conduct of affairs, this arrangement may answer. Otherwise I should </p><p>think the lack of an independent unofficial medium for the expression </p><p>of public opinion would have most unfortunate results. Confess, Dr. </p><p>Leete, that a free newspaper press, with all that it implies, was a </p><p>redeeming incident of the old system when capital was in private </p><p>hands, and that you have to set off the loss of that against your </p><p>gains in other respects."</p><p>"I am afraid I can't give you even that consolation," replied Dr. </p><p>Leete, laughing. "In the first place, Mr. West, the newspaper press is </p><p>by no means the only or, as we look at it, the best vehicle for </p><p>serious criticism of public affairs. To us, the judgments of your </p><p>newspapers on such themes seem generally to have been crude and </p><p>flippant, as well as deeply tinctured with prejudice and bitterness. </p><p>In so far as they may be taken as expressing public opinion, they give </p><p>an unfavorable impression of the popular intelligence, while so far as </p><p>they may have formed public opinion, the nation was not to be </p><p>felicitated. Nowadays, when a citizen desires to make a serious </p><p>impression upon the public mind as to any aspect of public affairs, he </p><p>comes out with a book or pamphlet, published as other books are. But </p><p>this is not because we lack newspapers and magazines, or that they </p><p>lack the most absolute freedom. The newspaper press is organized so as </p><p>to be a more perfect expression of public opinion than it possibly </p><p>could be in your day, when private capital controlled and managed it </p><p>primarily as a money-making business, and secondarily only as a </p><p>mouthpiece for the people." </p><p>"But," said I, "if the government prints the papers at the public </p><p>expense, how can it fail to control their policy? Who appoints the </p><p>editors, if not the government?" </p><p>"The government does not pay the expense of the papers, nor appoint </p><p>their editors, nor in any way exert the slightest influence on their </p><p>policy," replied Dr. Leete. "The people who take the paper pay the </p><p>expense of its publication, choose its editor, and remove him when </p><p>unsatisfactory. You will scarcely say, I think, that such a newspaper </p><p>press is not a free organ of popular opinion." </p><p>"Decidedly I shall not," I replied, "but how is it practicable?" </p><p>"Nothing could be simpler. Supposing some of my neighbors or myself </p><p>think we ought to have a newspaper reflecting our opinions, and </p><p>devoted especially to our locality, trade, or profession. We go about </p><p>among the people till we get the names of such a number that their </p><p>annual subscriptions will meet the cost of the paper, which is little </p><p>or big according to the largeness of its constituency. The amount of </p><p>the subscriptions marked off the credits of the citizens guarantees </p><p>the nation against loss in publishing the paper, its business, you </p><p>understand, being that of a publisher purely, with no option to refuse </p><p>the duty required. The subscribers to the paper now elect somebody as </p><p>editor, who, if he accepts the office, is discharged from other </p><p>service during his incumbency. Instead of paying a salary to him, as </p><p>in your day, the subscribers pay the nation an indemnity equal to the </p><p>cost of his support for taking him away from the general service. He </p><p>manages the paper just as one of your editors did, except that he has </p><p>no counting-room to obey, or interests of private capital as against </p><p>the public good to defend. At the end of the first year, the </p><p>subscribers for the next either re�lect the former editor or choose </p><p>any one else to his place. An able editor, of course, keeps his place </p><p>indefinitely. As the subscription list enlarges, the funds of the </p><p>paper increase, and it is improved by the securing of more and better </p><p>contributors, just as your papers were." </p><p>"How is the staff of contributors recompensed, since they cannot be </p><p>paid in money." </p><p>"The editor settles with them the price of their wares. The amount is </p><p>transferred to their individual credit from the guarantee credit of </p><p>the paper, and a remission of service is granted the contributor for a </p><p>length of time corresponding to the amount credited him, just as to </p><p>other authors. As to magazines, the system is the same. Those </p><p>interested in the prospectus of a new periodical pledge enough </p><p>subscriptions to run it for a year; select their editor, who </p><p>recompenses his contributors just as in the other case, the printing </p><p>bureau furnishing the necessary force and material for publication, as </p><p>a matter of course. When an editor's services are no longer desired, </p><p>if he cannot earn the right to his time by other literary work, he </p><p>simply resumes his place in the industrial army. I should add that, </p><p>though ordinarily the editor is elected only at the end of the year, </p><p>and as a rule is continued in office for a term of years, in case of </p><p>any sudden change he should give to the tone of the paper, provision </p><p>is made for taking the sense of the subscribers as to his removal at </p><p>any time." </p><p>"However earnestly a man may long for leisure for purposes of study or </p><p>meditation," I remarked, "he cannot get out of the harness, if I </p><p>understand you rightly, except in these two ways you have mentioned. </p><p>He must either by literary, artistic, or inventive productiveness </p><p>indemnify the nation for the loss of his services, or must get a </p><p>sufficient number of other people to contribute to such an indemnity." </p><p>"It is most certain," replied Dr. Leete, "that no able-bodied man </p><p>nowadays can evade his share of work and live on the toil of others, </p><p>whether he calls himself by the fine name of student or confesses to </p><p>being simply lazy. At the same time our system is elastic enough to </p><p>give free play to every instinct of human nature which does not aim at </p><p>dominating others or living on the fruit of others' labor. There is </p><p>not only the remission by indemnification but the remission by </p><p>abnegation. Any man in his thirty-third year, his term of service </p><p>being then half done, can obtain an honorable discharge from the army, </p><p>provided he accepts for the rest of his life one half the rate of </p><p>maintenance other citizens receive. It is quite possible to live on </p><p>this amount, though one must forego the luxuries and elegancies of </p><p>life, with some, perhaps, of its comforts." </p><p>When the ladies retired that evening, Edith brought me a book and </p><p>said:-- </p><p>"If you should be wakeful to-night, Mr. West, you might be interested </p><p>in looking over this story by Berrian. It is considered his </p><p>masterpiece, and will at least give you an idea what the stories </p><p>nowadays are like." </p><p>I sat up in my room that night reading "Penthesilia" till it grew gray </p><p>in the east, and did not lay it down till I had finished it. And yet </p><p>let no admirer of the great romancer of the twentieth century resent </p><p>my saying that at the first reading what most impressed me was not so </p><p>much what was in the book as what was left out of it. The </p><p>story-writers of my day would have deemed the making of bricks without </p><p>straw a light task compared with the construction of a romance from </p><p>which should be excluded all effects drawn from the contrasts of </p><p>wealth and poverty, education and ignorance, coarseness and </p><p>refinement, high and low, all motives drawn from social pride and </p><p>ambition, the desire of being richer or the fear of being poorer, </p><p>together with sordid anxieties of any sort for one's self or others; a</p><p>romance in which there should, indeed, be love galore, but love </p><p>unfretted by artificial barriers created by differences of station or </p><p>possessions, owning no other law but that of the heart. The reading of </p><p>"Penthesilia" was of more value than almost any amount of explanation </p><p>would have been in giving me something like a general impression of </p><p>the social aspect of the twentieth century. The information Dr. Leete </p><p>had imparted was indeed extensive as to facts, but they had affected </p><p>my mind as so many separate impressions, which I had as yet succeeded </p><p>but imperfectly in making cohere. Berrian put them together for me in </p><p>a picture. </p><p>[Footnote 3: I cannot sufficiently celebrate the glorious liberty that </p><p>reigns in the public libraries of the twentieth century as compared </p><p>with the intolerable management of those of the nineteenth century, in </p><p>which the books were jealously railed away from the people, and </p><p>obtainable only at an expenditure of time and red tape calculated to </p><p>discourage any ordinary taste for literature.] </p><p>CHAPTER XVI. </p><p>Next morning I rose somewhat before the breakfast hour. As I descended </p><p>the stairs, Edith stepped into the hall from the room which had been </p><p>the scene of the morning interview between us described some chapters </p><p>back. </p><p>"Ah!" she exclaimed, with a charmingly arch expression, "you thought </p><p>to slip out unbeknown for another of those solitary morning rambles </p><p>which have such nice effects on you. But you see I am up too early for </p><p>you this time. You are fairly caught." </p><p>"You discredit the efficacy of your own cure," I said, "by supposing </p><p>that such a ramble would now be attended with bad consequences." </p><p>"I am very glad to hear that," she said. "I was in here arranging some </p><p>flowers for the breakfast table when I heard you come down, and </p><p>fancied I detected something surreptitious in your step on the </p><p>stairs." </p><p>"You did me injustice," I replied. "I had no idea of going out at </p><p>all." </p><p>Despite her effort to convey an impression that my interception was </p><p>purely accidental, I had at the time a dim suspicion of what I </p><p>afterwards learned to be the fact, namely, that this sweet creature, </p><p>in pursuance of her self-assumed guardianship over me, had risen for </p><p>the last two or three mornings at an unheard-of hour, to insure </p><p>against the possibility of my wandering off alone in case I should be </p><p>affected as on the former occasion. Receiving permission to assist her </p><p>in making up the breakfast bouquet, I followed her into the room from </p><p>which she had emerged. </p><p>"Are you sure," she asked, "that you are quite done with those </p><p>terrible sensations you had that morning?" </p><p>"I can't say that I do not have times of feeling decidedly queer," I</p><p>replied, "moments when my personal identity seems an open question. It </p><p>would be too much to expect after my experience that I should not have </p><p>such sensations occasionally, but as for being carried entirely off my </p><p>feet, as I was on the point of being that morning, I think the danger </p><p>is past." </p><p>"I shall never forget how you looked that morning," she said. </p><p>"If you had merely saved my life," I continued, "I might, perhaps, </p><p>find words to express my gratitude, but it was my reason you saved, </p><p>and there are no words that would not belittle my debt to you." I </p><p>spoke with emotion, and her eyes grew suddenly moist. </p><p>"It is too much to believe all this," she said, "but it is very </p><p>delightful to hear you say it. What I did was very little. I was very </p><p>much distressed for you, I know. Father never thinks anything ought to </p><p>astonish us when it can be explained scientifically, as I suppose this </p><p>long sleep of yours can be, but even to fancy myself in your place </p><p>makes my head swim. I know that I could not have borne it at all." </p><p>"That would depend," I replied, "on whether an angel came to support </p><p>you with her sympathy in the crisis of your condition, as one came to </p><p>me." If my face at all expressed the feelings I had a right to have </p><p>toward this sweet and lovely young girl, who had played so angelic a </p><p>r�le toward me, its expression must have been very worshipful just </p><p>then. The expression or the words, or both together, caused her now to </p><p>drop her eyes with a charming blush. </p><p>"For the matter of that," I said, "if your experience has not been as </p><p>startling as mine, it must have been rather overwhelming to see a man </p><p>belonging to a strange century, and apparently a hundred years dead, </p><p>raised to life." </p><p>"It seemed indeed strange beyond any describing at first," she said, </p><p>"but when we began to put ourselves in your place, and realize how </p><p>much stranger it must seem to you, I fancy we forgot our own feelings </p><p>a good deal, at least I know I did. It seemed then not so much </p><p>astounding as interesting and touching beyond anything ever heard of </p><p>before." </p><p>"But does it not come over you as astounding to sit at table with me, </p><p>seeing who I am?" </p><p>"You must remember that you do not seem so strange to us as we must to </p><p>you," she answered. "We belong to a future of which you could not form </p><p>an idea, a generation of which you knew nothing until you saw us. But </p><p>you belong to a generation of which our forefathers were a part. We </p><p>know all about it; the names of many of its members are household </p><p>words with us. We have made a study of your ways of living and </p><p>thinking; nothing you say or do surprises us, while we say and do </p><p>nothing which does not seem strange to you. So you see, Mr. West, that </p><p>if you feel that you can, in time, get accustomed to us, you must not </p><p>be surprised that from the first we have scarcely found you strange at </p><p>all." </p><p>"I had not thought of it in that way," I replied. "There is indeed </p><p>much in what you say. One can look back a thousand years easier than </p><p>forward fifty. A century is not so very long a retrospect. I might </p><p>have known your great-grand-parents. Possibly I did. Did they live in</p><p>Boston?" </p><p>"I believe so." </p><p>"You are not sure, then?" </p><p>"Yes," she replied. "Now I think, they did." </p><p>"I had a very large circle of acquaintances in the city," I said. "It </p><p>is not unlikely that I knew or knew of some of them. Perhaps I may </p><p>have known them well. Wouldn't it be interesting if I should chance </p><p>to be able to tell you all about your great-grandfather, for </p><p>instance?" </p><p>"Very interesting." </p><p>"Do you know your genealogy well enough to tell me who your forbears </p><p>were in the Boston of my day?" </p><p>"Oh, yes." </p><p>"Perhaps, then, you will some time tell me what some of their names </p><p>were." </p><p>She was engrossed in arranging a troublesome spray of green, and did </p><p>not reply at once. Steps upon the stairway indicated that the other </p><p>members of the family were descending. </p><p>"Perhaps, some time," she said. </p><p>After breakfast, Dr. Leete suggested taking me to inspect the central </p><p>warehouse and observe actually in operation the machinery of </p><p>distribution, which Edith had described to me. As we walked away from </p><p>the house I said, "It is now several days that I have been living in </p><p>your household on a most extraordinary footing, or rather on none at </p><p>all. I have not spoken of this aspect of my position before because </p><p>there were so many other aspects yet more extraordinary. But now that </p><p>I am beginning a little to feel my feet under me, and to realize that, </p><p>however I came here, I am here, and must make the best of it, I must </p><p>speak to you on this point." </p><p>"As for your being a guest in my house," replied Dr. Leete, "I pray </p><p>you not to begin to be uneasy on that point, for I mean to keep you a </p><p>long time yet. With all your modesty, you can but realize that such a </p><p>guest as yourself is an acquisition not willingly to be parted with." </p><p>"Thanks, doctor," I said. "It would be absurd, certainly, for me to </p><p>affect any oversensitiveness about accepting the temporary hospitality </p><p>of one to whom I owe it that I am not still awaiting the end of the </p><p>world in a living tomb. But if I am to be a permanent citizen of this </p><p>century I must have some standing in it. Now, in my time a person more </p><p>or less entering the world, however he got in, would not be noticed in </p><p>the unorganized throng of men, and might make a place for himself </p><p>anywhere he chose if he were strong enough. But nowadays everybody is </p><p>a part of a system with a distinct place and function. I am outside </p><p>the system, and don't see how I can get in; there seems no way to get </p><p>in, except to be born in or to come in as an emigrant from some other </p><p>system." </p><p>Dr. Leete laughed heartily. </p><p>"I admit," he said, "that our system is defective in lacking provision </p><p>for cases like yours, but you see nobody anticipated additions to the </p><p>world except by the usual process. You need, however, have no fear </p><p>that we shall be unable to provide both a place and occupation for you </p><p>in due time. You have as yet been brought in contact only with the </p><p>members of my family, but you must not suppose that I have kept your </p><p>secret. On the contrary, your case, even before your resuscitation, </p><p>and vastly more since, has excited the profoundest interest in the </p><p>nation. In view of your precarious nervous condition, it was thought </p><p>best that I should take exclusive charge of you at first, and that you </p><p>should, through me and my family, receive some general idea of the </p><p>sort of world you had come back to before you began to make the </p><p>acquaintance generally of its inhabitants. As to finding a function </p><p>for you in society, there was no hesitation as to what that would be. </p><p>Few of us have it in our power to confer so great a service on the </p><p>nation as you will be able to when you leave my roof, which, however, </p><p>you must not think of doing for a good time yet." </p><p>"What can I possibly do?" I asked. "Perhaps you imagine I have some </p><p>trade, or art, or special skill. I assure you I have none whatever. I </p><p>never earned a dollar in my life, or did an hour's work. I am strong, </p><p>and might be a common laborer, but nothing more." </p><p>"If that were the most efficient service you were able to render the </p><p>nation, you would find that avocation considered quite as respectable </p><p>as any other," replied Dr. Leete; "but you can do something else </p><p>better. You are easily the master of all our historians on questions </p><p>relating to the social condition of the latter part of the nineteenth </p><p>century, to us one of the most absorbingly interesting periods of </p><p>history; and whenever in due time you have sufficiently familiarized </p><p>yourself with our institutions, and are willing to teach us something </p><p>concerning those of your day, you will find an historical lectureship </p><p>in one of our colleges awaiting you." </p><p>"Very good! very good indeed," I said, much relieved by so practical a </p><p>suggestion on a point which had begun to trouble me. "If your people </p><p>are really so much interested in the nineteenth century, there will </p><p>indeed be an occupation ready-made for me. I don't think there is </p><p>anything else that I could possibly earn my salt at, but I certainly </p><p>may claim without conceit to have some special qualifications for such </p><p>a post as you describe." </p><p>CHAPTER XVII. </p><p>I found the processes at the warehouse quite as interesting as Edith </p><p>had described them, and became even enthusiastic over the truly </p><p>remarkable illustration which is seen there of the prodigiously </p><p>multiplied efficiency which perfect organization can give to labor. It </p><p>is like a gigantic mill, into the hopper of which goods are being </p><p>constantly poured by the train-load and ship-load, to issue at the </p><p>other end in packages of pounds and ounces, yards and inches, pints </p><p>and gallons, corresponding to the infinitely complex personal needs of </p><p>half a million people. Dr. Leete, with the assistance of data</p><p>furnished by me as to the way goods were sold in my day, figured out </p><p>some astounding results in the way of the economies effected by the </p><p>modern system. </p><p>As we set out homeward, I said: "After what I have seen to-day, </p><p>together with what you have told me, and what I learned under Miss </p><p>Leete's tutelage at the sample store, I have a tolerably clear idea of </p><p>your system of distribution, and how it enables you to dispense with a </p><p>circulating medium. But I should like very much to know something more </p><p>about your system of production. You have told me in general how your </p><p>industrial army is levied and organized, but who directs its efforts? </p><p>What supreme authority determines what shall be done in every </p><p>department, so that enough of everything is produced and yet no labor </p><p>wasted? It seems to me that this must be a wonderfully complex and </p><p>difficult function, requiring very unusual endowments." </p><p>"Does it indeed seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete. "I assure you </p><p>that it is nothing of the kind, but on the other hand so simple, and </p><p>depending on principles so obvious and easily applied, that the </p><p>functionaries at Washington to whom it is trusted require to be </p><p>nothing more than men of fair abilities to discharge it to the entire </p><p>satisfaction of the nation. The machine which they direct is indeed a </p><p>vast one, but so logical in its principles and direct and simple in </p><p>its workings, that it all but runs itself; and nobody but a fool could </p><p>derange it, as I think you will agree after a few words of </p><p>explanation. Since you already have a pretty good idea of the working </p><p>of the distributive system, let us begin at that end. Even in your day </p><p>statisticians were able to tell you the number of yards of cotton, </p><p>velvet, woolen, the number of barrels of flour, potatoes, butter, </p><p>number of pairs of shoes, hats, and umbrellas annually consumed by the </p><p>nation. Owing to the fact that production was in private hands, and </p><p>that there was no way of getting statistics of actual distribution, </p><p>these figures were not exact, but they were nearly so. Now that every </p><p>pin which is given out from a national warehouse is recorded, of </p><p>course the figures of consumption for any week, month, or year, in the </p><p>possession of the department of distribution at the end of that </p><p>period, are precise. On these figures, allowing for tendencies to </p><p>increase or decrease and for any special causes likely to affect </p><p>demand, the estimates, say for a year ahead, are based. These </p><p>estimates, with a proper margin for security, having been accepted by </p><p>the general administration, the responsibility of the distributive </p><p>department ceases until the goods are delivered to it. I speak of the </p><p>estimates being furnished for an entire year ahead, but in reality </p><p>they cover that much time only in case of the great staples for which </p><p>the demand can be calculated on as steady. In the great majority of </p><p>smaller industries for the product of which popular taste fluctuates, </p><p>and novelty is frequently required, production is kept barely ahead of </p><p>consumption, the distributive department furnishing frequent estimates </p><p>based on the weekly state of demand. </p><p>"Now the entire field of productive and constructive industry is </p><p>divided into ten great departments, each representing a group of </p><p>allied industries, each particular industry being in turn represented </p><p>by a subordinate bureau, which has a complete record of the plant and </p><p>force under its control, of the present product, and means of </p><p>increasing it. The estimates of the distributive department, after </p><p>adoption by the administration, are sent as mandates to the ten great </p><p>departments, which allot them to the subordinate bureaus representing </p><p>the particular industries, and these set the men at work. Each bureau</p><p>is responsible for the task given it, and this responsibility is </p><p>enforced by departmental oversight and that of the administration; nor </p><p>does the distributive department accept the product without its own </p><p>inspection; while even if in the hands of the consumer an article </p><p>turns out unfit, the system enables the fault to be traced back to the </p><p>original workman. The production of the commodities for actual public </p><p>consumption does not, of course, require by any means all the national </p><p>force of workers. After the necessary contingents have been detailed </p><p>for the various industries, the amount of labor left for other </p><p>employment is expended in creating fixed capital, such as buildings, </p><p>machinery, engineering works, and so forth." </p><p>"One point occurs to me," I said, "on which I should think there might </p><p>be dissatisfaction. Where there is no opportunity for private </p><p>enterprise, how is there any assurance that the claims of small </p><p>minorities of the people to have articles produced, for which there is </p><p>no wide demand, will be respected? An official decree at any moment </p><p>may deprive them of the means of gratifying some special taste, merely </p><p>because the majority does not share it." </p><p>"That would be tyranny indeed," replied Dr. Leete, "and you may be </p><p>very sure that it does not happen with us, to whom liberty is as dear </p><p>as equality or fraternity. As you come to know our system better, you </p><p>will see that our officials are in fact, and not merely in name, the </p><p>agents and servants of the people. The administration has no power to </p><p>stop the production of any commodity for which there continues to be a </p><p>demand. Suppose the demand for any article declines to such a point </p><p>that its production becomes very costly. The price has to be raised in </p><p>proportion, of course, but as long as the consumer cares to pay it, </p><p>the production goes on. Again, suppose an article not before produced </p><p>is demanded. If the administration doubts the reality of the demand, a </p><p>popular petition guaranteeing a certain basis of consumption compels </p><p>it to produce the desired article. A government, or a majority, which </p><p>should undertake to tell the people, or a minority, what they were to </p><p>eat, drink, or wear, as I believe governments in America did in your </p><p>day, would be regarded as a curious anachronism indeed. Possibly you </p><p>had reasons for tolerating these infringements of personal </p><p>independence, but we should not think them endurable. I am glad you </p><p>raised this point, for it has given me a chance to show you how much </p><p>more direct and efficient is the control over production exercised by </p><p>the individual citizen now than it was in your day, when what you </p><p>called private initiative prevailed, though it should have been </p><p>called capitalist initiative, for the average private citizen had </p><p>little enough share in it." </p><p>"You speak of raising the price of costly articles," I said. "How can </p><p>prices be regulated in a country where there is no competition between </p><p>buyers or sellers?" </p><p>"Just as they were with you," replied Dr. Leete. "You think that needs </p><p>explaining," he added, as I looked incredulous, "but the explanation </p><p>need not be long; the cost of the labor which produced it was </p><p>recognized as the legitimate basis of the price of an article in your </p><p>day, and so it is in ours. In your day, it was the difference in wages </p><p>that made the difference in the cost of labor; now it is the relative </p><p>number of hours constituting a day's work in different trades, the </p><p>maintenance of the worker being equal in all cases. The cost of a </p><p>man's work in a trade so difficult that in order to attract volunteers </p><p>the hours have to be fixed at four a day is twice as great as that in</p><p>a trade where the men work eight hours. The result as to the cost of </p><p>labor, you see, is just the same as if the man working four hours were </p><p>paid, under your system, twice the wages the other gets. This </p><p>calculation applied to the labor employed in the various processes of </p><p>a manufactured article gives its price relatively to other articles. </p><p>Besides the cost of production and transportation, the factor of </p><p>scarcity affects the prices of some commodities. As regards the great </p><p>staples of life, of which an abundance can always be secured, </p><p>scarcity is eliminated as a factor. There is always a large surplus </p><p>kept on hand from which any fluctuations of demand or supply can be </p><p>corrected, even in most cases of bad crops. The prices of the staples </p><p>grow less year by year, but rarely, if ever, rise. There are, however, </p><p>certain classes of articles permanently, and others temporarily, </p><p>unequal to the demand, as, for example, fresh fish or dairy products </p><p>in the latter category, and the products of high skill and rare </p><p>materials in the other. All that can be done here is to equalize the </p><p>inconvenience of the scarcity. This is done by temporarily raising the </p><p>price if the scarcity be temporary, or fixing it high if it be </p><p>permanent. High prices in your day meant restriction of the articles </p><p>affected to the rich, but nowadays, when the means of all are the </p><p>same, the effect is only that those to whom the articles seem most </p><p>desirable are the ones who purchase them. Of course the nation, as any </p><p>other caterer for the public needs must be, is frequently left with </p><p>small lots of goods on its hands by changes in taste, unseasonable </p><p>weather, and various other causes. These it has to dispose of at a </p><p>sacrifice just as merchants often did in your day, charging up the </p><p>loss to the expenses of the business. Owing, however, to the vast body </p><p>of consumers to which such lots can be simultaneously offered, there </p><p>is rarely any difficulty in getting rid of them at trifling loss. I </p><p>have given you now some general notion of our system of production, </p><p>as well as distribution. Do you find it as complex as you expected?" </p><p>I admitted that nothing could be much simpler. </p><p>"I am sure," said Dr. Leete, "that it is within the truth to say that </p><p>the head of one of the myriad private businesses of your day, who had </p><p>to maintain sleepless vigilance against the fluctuations of the </p><p>market, the machinations of his rivals, and the failure of his </p><p>debtors, had a far more trying task than the group of men at </p><p>Washington who nowadays direct the industries of the entire nation. </p><p>All this merely shows, my dear fellow, how much easier it is to do </p><p>things the right way than the wrong. It is easier for a general up in </p><p>a balloon, with perfect survey of the field, to manoeuvre a million men </p><p>to victory than for a sergeant to manage a platoon in a thicket." </p><p>"The general of this army, including the flower of the manhood of the </p><p>nation, must be the foremost man in the country, really greater even </p><p>than the President of the United States," I said. </p><p>"He is the President of the United States," replied Dr. Leete, "or </p><p>rather the most important function of the presidency is the headship </p><p>of the industrial army." </p><p>"How is he chosen?" I asked. </p><p>"I explained to you before," replied Dr. Leete, "when I was describing </p><p>the force of the motive of emulation among all grades of the </p><p>industrial army, that the line of promotion for the meritorious lies </p><p>through three grades to the officer's grade, and thence up through the</p><p>lieutenancies to the captaincy or foremanship, and superintendency or </p><p>colonel's rank. Next, with an intervening grade in some of the larger </p><p>trades, come the general of the guild, under whose immediate control </p><p>all the operations of the trade are conducted. This officer is at the </p><p>head of the national bureau representing his trade, and is responsible </p><p>for its work to the administration. The general of his guild holds a </p><p>splendid position, and one which amply satisfies the ambition of most </p><p>men, but above his rank, which may be compared--to follow the military </p><p>analogies familiar to you--to that of a general of division or </p><p>major-general, is that of the chiefs of the ten great departments, or </p><p>groups of allied trades. The chiefs of these ten grand divisions of </p><p>the industrial army may be compared to your commanders of army corps, </p><p>or lieutenant-generals, each having from a dozen to a score of </p><p>generals of separate guilds reporting to him. Above these ten great </p><p>officers, who form his council, is the general-in-chief, who is the </p><p>President of the United States. </p><p>"The general-in-chief of the industrial army must have passed through </p><p>all the grades below him, from the common laborers up. Let us see how </p><p>he rises. As I have told you, it is simply by the excellence of his </p><p>record as a worker that one rises through the grades of the privates </p><p>and becomes a candidate for a lieutenancy. Through the lieutenancies </p><p>he rises to the colonelcy, or superintendent's position, by </p><p>appointment from above, strictly limited to the candidates of the best </p><p>records. The general of the guild appoints to the ranks under him, but </p><p>he himself is not appointed, but chosen by suffrage." </p><p>"By suffrage!" I exclaimed. "Is not that ruinous to the discipline of </p><p>the guild, by tempting the candidates to intrigue for the support of </p><p>the workers under them?" </p><p>"So it would be, no doubt," replied Dr. Leete, "if the workers had any </p><p>suffrage to exercise, or anything to say about the choice. But they </p><p>have nothing. Just here comes in a peculiarity of our system. The </p><p>general of the guild is chosen from among the superintendents by vote </p><p>of the honorary members of the guild, that is, of those who have </p><p>served their time in the guild and received their discharge. As you </p><p>know, at the age of forty-five we are mustered out of the army of </p><p>industry, and have the residue of life for the pursuit of our own </p><p>improvement or recreation. Of course, however, the associations of our </p><p>active lifetime retain a powerful hold on us. The companionships we </p><p>formed then remain our companionships till the end of life. We always </p><p>continue honorary members of our former guilds, and retain the keenest </p><p>and most jealous interest in their welfare and repute in the hands of </p><p>the following generation. In the clubs maintained by the honorary </p><p>members of the several guilds, in which we meet socially, there are no </p><p>topics of conversation so common as those which relate to these </p><p>matters, and the young aspirants for guild leadership who can pass the </p><p>criticism of us old fellows are likely to be pretty well equipped. </p><p>Recognizing this fact, the nation entrusts to the honorary members of </p><p>each guild the election of its general, and I venture to claim that no </p><p>previous form of society could have developed a body of electors so </p><p>ideally adapted to their office, as regards absolute impartiality, </p><p>knowledge of the special qualifications and record of candidates, </p><p>solicitude for the best result, and complete absence of self-interest. </p><p>"Each of the ten lieutenant-generals or heads of departments is </p><p>himself elected from among the generals of the guilds grouped as a </p><p>department, by vote of the honorary members of the guilds thus</p><p>grouped. Of course there is a tendency on the part of each guild to </p><p>vote for its own general, but no guild of any group has nearly enough </p><p>votes to elect a man not supported by most of the others. I assure you </p><p>that these elections are exceedingly lively." </p><p>"The President, I suppose, is selected from among the ten heads of the </p><p>great departments," I suggested. </p><p>"Precisely, but the heads of departments are not eligible to the </p><p>presidency till they have been a certain number of years out of </p><p>office. It is rarely that a man passes through all the grades to the </p><p>headship of a department much before he is forty, and at the end of a </p><p>five years' term he is usually forty-five. If more, he still serves </p><p>through his term, and if less, he is nevertheless discharged from the </p><p>industrial army at its termination. It would not do for him to return </p><p>to the ranks. The interval before he is a candidate for the presidency </p><p>is intended to give time for him to recognize fully that he has </p><p>returned into the general mass of the nation, and is identified with </p><p>it rather than with the industrial army. Moreover, it is expected that </p><p>he will employ this period in studying the general condition of the </p><p>army, instead of that of the special group of guilds of which he was </p><p>the head. From among the former heads of departments who may be </p><p>eligible at the time, the President is elected by vote of all the men </p><p>of the nation who are not connected with the industrial army." </p><p>"The army is not allowed to vote for President?" </p><p>"Certainly not. That would be perilous to its discipline, which it is </p><p>the business of the President to maintain as the representative of the </p><p>nation at large. His right hand for this purpose is the inspectorate, </p><p>a highly important department of our system; to the inspectorate come </p><p>all complaints or information as to defects in goods, insolence or </p><p>inefficiency of officials, or dereliction of any sort in the public </p><p>service. The inspectorate, however, does not wait for complaints. Not </p><p>only is it on the alert to catch and sift every rumor of a fault in </p><p>the service, but it is its business, by systematic and constant </p><p>oversight and inspection of every branch of the army, to find out what </p><p>is going wrong before anybody else does. The President is usually not </p><p>far from fifty when elected, and serves five years, forming an </p><p>honorable exception to the rule of retirement at forty-five. At the </p><p>end of his term of office, a national Congress is called to receive </p><p>his report and approve or condemn it. If it is approved, Congress </p><p>usually elects him to represent the nation for five years more in the </p><p>international council. Congress, I should also say, passes on the </p><p>reports of the outgoing heads of departments, and a disapproval </p><p>renders any one of them ineligible for President. But it is rare, </p><p>indeed, that the nation has occasion for other sentiments than those </p><p>of gratitude toward its high officers. As to their ability, to have </p><p>risen from the ranks, by tests so various and severe, to their </p><p>positions, is proof in itself of extraordinary qualities, while as to </p><p>faithfulness, our social system leaves them absolutely without any </p><p>other motive than that of winning the esteem of their fellow citizens. </p><p>Corruption is impossible in a society where there is neither poverty </p><p>to be bribed nor wealth to bribe, while as to demagoguery or intrigue </p><p>for office, the conditions of promotion render them out of the </p><p>question." </p><p>"One point I do not quite understand," I said. "Are the members of the </p><p>liberal professions eligible to the presidency? and if so, how are</p><p>they ranked with those who pursue the industries proper?" </p><p>"They have no ranking with them," replied Dr. Leete. "The members of </p><p>the technical professions, such as engineers and architects, have a </p><p>ranking with the constructive guilds; but the members of the liberal </p><p>professions, the doctors and teachers, as well as the artists and men </p><p>of letters who obtain remissions of industrial service, do not belong </p><p>to the industrial army. On this ground they vote for the President, </p><p>but are not eligible to his office. One of its main duties being the </p><p>control and discipline of the industrial army, it is essential that </p><p>the President should have passed through all its grades to understand </p><p>his business." </p><p>"That is reasonable," I said; "but if the doctors and teachers do not </p><p>know enough of industry to be President, neither, I should think, can </p><p>the President know enough of medicine and education to control those </p><p>departments." </p><p>"No more does he," was the reply. "Except in the general way that he </p><p>is responsible for the enforcement of the laws as to all classes, the </p><p>President has nothing to do with the faculties of medicine and </p><p>education, which are controlled by boards of regents of their own, in </p><p>which the President is ex-officio chairman, and has the casting vote. </p><p>These regents, who, of course, are responsible to Congress, are chosen </p><p>by the honorary members of the guilds of education and medicine, the </p><p>retired teachers and doctors of the country." </p><p>"Do you know," I said, "the method of electing officials by votes of </p><p>the retired members of the guilds is nothing more than the application </p><p>on a national scale of the plan of government by alumni, which we used </p><p>to a slight extent occasionally in the management of our higher </p><p>educational institutions." </p><p>"Did you, indeed?" exclaimed Dr. Leete, with animation. "That is quite </p><p>new to me, and I fancy will be to most of us, and of much interest as </p><p>well. There has been great discussion as to the germ of the idea, and </p><p>we fancied that there was for once something new under the sun. Well! </p><p>well! In your higher educational institutions! that is interesting </p><p>indeed. You must tell me more of that." </p><p>"Truly, there is very little more to tell than I have told already," I </p><p>replied. "If we had the germ of your idea, it was but as a germ." </p><p>CHAPTER XVIII. </p><p>That evening I sat up for some time after the ladies had retired, </p><p>talking with Dr. Leete about the effect of the plan of exempting men </p><p>from further service to the nation after the age of forty-five, a </p><p>point brought up by his account of the part taken by the retired </p><p>citizens in the government. </p><p>"At forty-five," said I, "a man still has ten years of good manual </p><p>labor in him, and twice ten years of good intellectual service. To be </p><p>superannuated at that age and laid on the shelf must be regarded </p><p>rather as a hardship than a favor by men of energetic dispositions."</p><p>"My dear Mr. West," exclaimed Dr. Leete, beaming upon me, "you cannot </p><p>have any idea of the piquancy your nineteenth century ideas have for </p><p>us of this day, the rare quaintness of their effect. Know, O child of </p><p>another race and yet the same, that the labor we have to render as our </p><p>part in securing for the nation the means of a comfortable physical </p><p>existence is by no means regarded as the most important, the most </p><p>interesting, or the most dignified employment of our powers. We look </p><p>upon it as a necessary duty to be discharged before we can fully </p><p>devote ourselves to the higher exercise of our faculties, the </p><p>intellectual and spiritual enjoyments and pursuits which alone mean </p><p>life. Everything possible is indeed done by the just distribution of </p><p>burdens, and by all manner of special attractions and incentives to </p><p>relieve our labor of irksomeness, and, except in a comparative sense, </p><p>it is not usually irksome, and is often inspiring. But it is not our </p><p>labor, but the higher and larger activities which the performance of </p><p>our task will leave us free to enter upon, that are considered the </p><p>main business of existence. </p><p>"Of course not all, nor the majority, have those scientific, artistic, </p><p>literary, or scholarly interests which make leisure the one thing </p><p>valuable to their possessors. Many look upon the last half of life </p><p>chiefly as a period for enjoyment of other sorts; for travel, for </p><p>social relaxation in the company of their lifetime friends; a time </p><p>for the cultivation of all manner of personal idiosyncrasies and </p><p>special tastes, and the pursuit of every imaginable form of </p><p>recreation; in a word, a time for the leisurely and unperturbed </p><p>appreciation of the good things of the world which they have helped to </p><p>create. But whatever the differences between our individual tastes as </p><p>to the use we shall put our leisure to, we all agree in looking </p><p>forward to the date of our discharge as the time when we shall first </p><p>enter upon the full enjoyment of our birthright, the period when we </p><p>shall first really attain our majority and become enfranchised from </p><p>discipline and control, with the fee of our lives vested in </p><p>ourselves. As eager boys in your day anticipated twenty-one, so men </p><p>nowadays look forward to forty-five. At twenty-one we become men, but </p><p>at forty-five we renew youth. Middle age and what you would have </p><p>called old age are considered, rather than youth, the enviable time of </p><p>life. Thanks to the better conditions of existence nowadays, and above </p><p>all the freedom of every one from care, old age approaches many years </p><p>later and has an aspect far more benign than in past times. Persons of </p><p>average constitution usually live to eighty-five or ninety, and at </p><p>forty-five we are physically and mentally younger, I fancy, than you </p><p>were at thirty-five. It is a strange reflection that at forty-five, </p><p>when we are just entering upon the most enjoyable period of life, you </p><p>already began to think of growing old and to look backward. With you </p><p>it was the forenoon, with us it is the afternoon, which is the </p><p>brighter half of life." </p><p>After this I remember that our talk branched into the subject of </p><p>popular sports and recreations at the present time as compared with </p><p>those of the nineteenth century. </p><p>"In one respect," said Dr. Leete, "there is a marked difference. The </p><p>professional sportsmen, which were such a curious feature of your day, </p><p>we have nothing answering to, nor are the prizes for which our </p><p>athletes contend money prizes, as with you. Our contests are always </p><p>for glory only. The generous rivalry existing between the various </p><p>guilds, and the loyalty of each worker to his own, afford a constant</p><p>stimulation to all sorts of games and matches by sea and land, in </p><p>which the young men take scarcely more interest than the honorary </p><p>guildsmen who have served their time. The guild yacht races off </p><p>Marblehead take place next week, and you will be able to judge for </p><p>yourself of the popular enthusiasm which such events nowadays call out </p><p>as compared with your day. The demand for '_panem et circenses_' </p><p>preferred by the Roman populace is recognized nowadays as a wholly </p><p>reasonable one. If bread is the first necessity of life, recreation is </p><p>a close second, and the nation caters for both. Americans of the </p><p>nineteenth century were as unfortunate in lacking an adequate </p><p>provision for the one sort of need as for the other. Even if the </p><p>people of that period had enjoyed larger leisure they would, I fancy, </p><p>have often been at a loss how to pass it agreeably. We are never in </p><p>that predicament." </p><p>CHAPTER XIX. </p><p>In the course of an early morning constitutional I visited </p><p>Charlestown. Among the changes, too numerous to attempt to indicate, </p><p>which mark the lapse of a century in that quarter, I particularly </p><p>noted the total disappearance of the old state prison. </p><p>"That went before my day, but I remember hearing about it," said Dr. </p><p>Leete, when I alluded to the fact at the breakfast table. "We have no </p><p>jails nowadays. All cases of atavism are treated in the hospitals." </p><p>"Of atavism!" I exclaimed, staring. </p><p>"Why, yes," replied Dr. Leete. "The idea of dealing punitively with </p><p>those unfortunates was given up at least fifty years ago, and I think </p><p>more." </p><p>"I don't quite understand you," I said. "Atavism in my day was a word </p><p>applied to the cases of persons in whom some trait of a remote </p><p>ancestor recurred in a noticeable manner. Am I to understand that </p><p>crime is nowadays looked upon as the recurrence of an ancestral </p><p>trait?" </p><p>"I beg your pardon," said Dr. Leete with a smile half humorous, half </p><p>deprecating, "but since you have so explicitly asked the question, I </p><p>am forced to say that the fact is precisely that." </p><p>After what I had already learned of the moral contrasts between the </p><p>nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, it was doubtless absurd in me </p><p>to begin to develop sensitiveness on the subject, and probably if Dr. </p><p>Leete had not spoken with that apologetic air and Mrs. Leete and Edith </p><p>shown a corresponding embarrassment, I should not have flushed, as I </p><p>was conscious I did. </p><p>"I was not in much danger of being vain of my generation before," I </p><p>said; "but, really"-- </p><p>"This is your generation, Mr. West," interposed Edith. "It is the one </p><p>in which you are living, you know, and it is only because we are alive </p><p>now that we call it ours."</p><p>"Thank you. I will try to think of it so," I said, and as my eyes met </p><p>hers their expression quite cured my senseless sensitiveness. "After </p><p>all," I said, with a laugh, "I was brought up a Calvinist, and ought </p><p>not to be startled to hear crime spoken of as an ancestral trait." </p><p>"In point of fact," said Dr. Leete, "our use of the word is no </p><p>reflection at all on your generation, if, begging Edith's pardon, we </p><p>may call it yours, so far as seeming to imply that we think ourselves, </p><p>apart from our circumstances, better than you were. In your day fully </p><p>nineteen twentieths of the crime, using the word broadly to include </p><p>all sorts of misdemeanors, resulted from the inequality in the </p><p>possessions of individuals; want tempted the poor, lust of greater </p><p>gains, or the desire to preserve former gains, tempted the well-to-do. </p><p>Directly or indirectly, the desire for money, which then meant every </p><p>good thing, was the motive of all this crime, the taproot of a vast </p><p>poison growth, which the machinery of law, courts, and police could </p><p>barely prevent from choking your civilization outright. When we made </p><p>the nation the sole trustee of the wealth of the people, and </p><p>guaranteed to all abundant maintenance, on the one hand abolishing </p><p>want, and on the other checking the accumulation of riches, we cut </p><p>this root, and the poison tree that overshadowed your society </p><p>withered, like Jonah's gourd, in a day. As for the comparatively small </p><p>class of violent crimes against persons, unconnected with any idea of </p><p>gain, they were almost wholly confined, even in your day, to the </p><p>ignorant and bestial; and in these days, when education and good </p><p>manners are not the monopoly of a few, but universal, such atrocities </p><p>are scarcely ever heard of. You now see why the word "atavism" is used </p><p>for crime. It is because nearly all forms of crime known to you are </p><p>motiveless now, and when they appear can only be explained as the </p><p>outcropping of ancestral traits. You used to call persons who stole, </p><p>evidently without any rational motive, kleptomaniacs, and when the </p><p>case was clear deemed it absurd to punish them as thieves. Your </p><p>attitude toward the genuine kleptomaniac is precisely ours toward the </p><p>victim of atavism, an attitude of compassion and firm but gentle </p><p>restraint. </p><p>"Your courts must have an easy time of it," I observed. "With no </p><p>private property to speak of, no disputes between citizens over </p><p>business relations, no real estate to divide or debts to collect, </p><p>there must be absolutely no civil business at all for them; and with </p><p>no offenses against property, and mighty few of any sort to provide </p><p>criminal cases, I should think you might almost do without judges and </p><p>lawyers altogether." </p><p>"We do without the lawyers, certainly," was Dr. Leete's reply. "It </p><p>would not seem reasonable to us, in a case where the only interest of </p><p>the nation is to find out the truth, that persons should take part in </p><p>the proceedings who had an acknowledged motive to color it." </p><p>"But who defends the accused?" </p><p>"If he is a criminal he needs no defense, for he pleads guilty in most </p><p>instances," replied Dr. Leete. "The plea of the accused is not a mere </p><p>formality with us, as with you. It is usually the end of the case." </p><p>"You don't mean that the man who pleads not guilty is thereupon </p><p>discharged?" </p><p>"No, I do not mean that. He is not accused on light grounds, and if he </p><p>denies his guilt, must still be tried. But trials are few, for in most </p><p>cases the guilty man pleads guilty. When he makes a false plea and is </p><p>clearly proved guilty, his penalty is doubled. Falsehood is, however, </p><p>so despised among us that few offenders would lie to save themselves." </p><p>"That is the most astounding thing you have yet told me," I exclaimed. </p><p>"If lying has gone out of fashion, this is indeed the 'new heavens and </p><p>the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,' which the prophet </p><p>foretold." </p><p>"Such is, in fact, the belief of some persons nowadays," was the </p><p>doctor's answer. "They hold that we have entered upon the millennium, </p><p>and the theory from their point of view does not lack plausibility. </p><p>But as to your astonishment at finding that the world has outgrown </p><p>lying, there is really no ground for it. Falsehood, even in your day, </p><p>was not common between gentlemen and ladies, social equals. The lie of </p><p>fear was the refuge of cowardice, and the lie of fraud the device of </p><p>the cheat. The inequalities of men and the lust of acquisition offered </p><p>a constant premium on lying at that time. Yet even then, the man who </p><p>neither feared another nor desired to defraud him scorned falsehood. </p><p>Because we are now all social equals, and no man either has anything </p><p>to fear from another or can gain anything by deceiving him, the </p><p>contempt of falsehood is so universal that it is rarely, as I told </p><p>you, that even a criminal in other respects will be found willing to </p><p>lie. When, however, a plea of not guilty is returned, the judge </p><p>appoints two colleagues to state the opposite sides of the case. How </p><p>far these men are from being like your hired advocates and </p><p>prosecutors, determined to acquit or convict, may appear from the fact </p><p>that unless both agree that the verdict found is just, the case is </p><p>tried over, while anything like bias in the tone of either of the </p><p>judges stating the case would be a shocking scandal." </p><p>"Do I understand," I said, "that it is a judge who states each side of </p><p>the case as well as a judge who hears it?" </p><p>"Certainly. The judges take turns in serving on the bench and at the </p><p>bar, and are expected to maintain the judicial temper equally whether </p><p>in stating or deciding a case. The system is indeed in effect that of </p><p>trial by three judges occupying different points of view as to the </p><p>case. When they agree upon a verdict, we believe it to be as near to </p><p>absolute truth as men well can come." </p><p>"You have given up the jury system, then?" </p><p>"It was well enough as a corrective in the days of hired advocates, </p><p>and a bench sometimes venal, and often with a tenure that made it </p><p>dependent, but is needless now. No conceivable motive but justice </p><p>could actuate our judges." </p><p>"How are these magistrates selected?" </p><p>"They are an honorable exception to the rule which discharges all men </p><p>from service at the age of forty-five. The President of the nation </p><p>appoints the necessary judges year by year from the class reaching </p><p>that age. The number appointed is, of course, exceedingly few, and </p><p>the honor so high that it is held an offset to the additional term of </p><p>service which follows, and though a judge's appointment may be </p><p>declined, it rarely is. The term is five years, without eligibility to</p><p>reappointment. The members of the Supreme Court, which is the guardian </p><p>of the constitution, are selected from among the lower judges. When a </p><p>vacancy in that court occurs, those of the lower judges, whose terms </p><p>expire that year, select, as their last official act, the one of their </p><p>colleagues left on the bench whom they deem fittest to fill it." </p><p>"There being no legal profession to serve as a school for judges," I </p><p>said, "they must, of course, come directly from the law school to the </p><p>bench." </p><p>"We have no such things as law schools," replied the doctor, smiling. </p><p>"The law as a special science is obsolete. It was a system of </p><p>casuistry which the elaborate artificiality of the old order of </p><p>society absolutely required to interpret it, but only a few of the </p><p>plainest and simplest legal maxims have any application to the </p><p>existing state of the world. Everything touching the relations of men </p><p>to one another is now simpler, beyond any comparison, than in your </p><p>day. We should have no sort of use for the hair-splitting experts who </p><p>presided and argued in your courts. You must not imagine, however, </p><p>that we have any disrespect for those ancient worthies because we have </p><p>no use for them. On the contrary, we entertain an unfeigned respect, </p><p>amounting almost to awe, for the men who alone understood and were </p><p>able to expound the interminable complexity of the rights of property, </p><p>and the relations of commercial and personal dependence involved in </p><p>your system. What, indeed, could possibly give a more powerful </p><p>impression of the intricacy and artificiality of that system than the </p><p>fact that it was necessary to set apart from other pursuits the cream </p><p>of the intellect of every generation, in order to provide a body of </p><p>pundits able to make it even vaguely intelligible to those whose fates </p><p>it determined. The treatises of your great lawyers, the works of </p><p>Blackstone and Chitty, of Story and Parsons, stand in our museums, </p><p>side by side with the tomes of Duns Scotus and his fellow scholastics, </p><p>as curious monuments of intellectual subtlety devoted to subjects </p><p>equally remote from the interests of modern men. Our judges are simply </p><p>widely informed, judicious, and discreet men of ripe years. </p><p>"I should not fail to speak of one important function of the minor </p><p>judges," added Dr. Leete. "This is to adjudicate all cases where a </p><p>private of the industrial army makes a complaint of unfairness against </p><p>an officer. All such questions are heard and settled without appeal by </p><p>a single judge, three judges being required only in graver cases. The </p><p>efficiency of industry requires the strictest discipline in the army </p><p>of labor, but the claim of the workman to just and considerate </p><p>treatment is backed by the whole power of the nation. The officer </p><p>commands and the private obeys, but no officer is so high that he </p><p>would dare display an overbearing manner toward a workman of the </p><p>lowest class. As for churlishness or rudeness by an official of any </p><p>sort, in his relations to the public, not one among minor offenses is </p><p>more sure of a prompt penalty than this. Not only justice but civility </p><p>is enforced by our judges in all sorts of intercourse. No value of </p><p>service is accepted as a set-off to boorish or offensive manners." </p><p>It occurred to me, as Dr. Leete was speaking, that in all his talk I </p><p>had heard much of the nation and nothing of the state governments. Had </p><p>the organization of the nation as an industrial unit done away with </p><p>the states? I asked. </p><p>"Necessarily," he replied. "The state governments would have </p><p>interfered with the control and discipline of the industrial army,</p><p>which, of course, required to be central and uniform. Even if the </p><p>state governments had not become inconvenient for other reasons, they </p><p>were rendered superfluous by the prodigious simplification in the task </p><p>of government since your day. Almost the sole function of the </p><p>administration now is that of directing the industries of the country. </p><p>Most of the purposes for which governments formerly existed no longer </p><p>remain to be subserved. We have no army or navy, and no military </p><p>organization. We have no departments of state or treasury, no excise </p><p>or revenue services, no taxes or tax collectors. The only function </p><p>proper of government, as known to you, which still remains, is the </p><p>judiciary and police system. I have already explained to you how </p><p>simple is our judicial system as compared with your huge and complex </p><p>machine. Of course the same absence of crime and temptation to it, </p><p>which make the duties of judges so light, reduces the number and </p><p>duties of the police to a minimum." </p><p>"But with no state legislatures, and Congress meeting only once in </p><p>five years, how do you get your legislation done?" </p><p>"We have no legislation," replied Dr. Leete, "that is, next to none. </p><p>It is rarely that Congress, even when it meets, considers any new laws </p><p>of consequence, and then it only has power to commend them to the </p><p>following Congress, lest anything be done hastily. If you will </p><p>consider a moment, Mr. West, you will see that we have nothing to make </p><p>laws about. The fundamental principles on which our society is founded </p><p>settle for all time the strifes and misunderstandings which in your </p><p>day called for legislation. </p><p>"Fully ninety-nine hundredths of the laws of that time concerned the </p><p>definition and protection of private property and the relations of </p><p>buyers and sellers. There is neither private property, beyond personal </p><p>belongings, now, nor buying and selling, and therefore the occasion of </p><p>nearly all the legislation formerly necessary has passed away. </p><p>Formerly, society was a pyramid poised on its apex. All the </p><p>gravitations of human nature were constantly tending to topple it </p><p>over, and it could be maintained upright, or rather upwrong (if you </p><p>will pardon the feeble witticism), by an elaborate system of </p><p>constantly renewed props and buttresses and guy-ropes in the form of </p><p>laws. A central Congress and forty state legislatures, turning out </p><p>some twenty thousand laws a year, could not make new props fast enough </p><p>to take the place of those which were constantly breaking down or </p><p>becoming ineffectual through some shifting of the strain. Now society </p><p>rests on its base, and is in as little need of artificial supports as </p><p>the everlasting hills." </p><p>"But you have at least municipal governments besides the one central </p><p>authority?" </p><p>"Certainly, and they have important and extensive functions in looking </p><p>out for the public comfort and recreation, and the improvement and </p><p>embellishment of the villages and cities." </p><p>"But having no control over the labor of their people, or means of </p><p>hiring it, how can they do anything?" </p><p>"Every town or city is conceded the right to retain, for its own </p><p>public works, a certain proportion of the quota of labor its citizens </p><p>contribute to the nation. This proportion, being assigned it as so </p><p>much credit, can be applied in any way desired."</p><p>CHAPTER XX. </p><p>That afternoon Edith casually inquired if I had yet revisited the </p><p>underground chamber in the garden in which I had been found. </p><p>"Not yet," I replied. "To be frank, I have shrunk thus far from doing </p><p>so, lest the visit might revive old associations rather too strongly </p><p>for my mental equilibrium." </p><p>"Ah, yes!" she said, "I can imagine that you have done well to stay </p><p>away. I ought to have thought of that." </p><p>"No," I said, "I am glad you spoke of it. The danger, if there was </p><p>any, existed only during the first day or two. Thanks to you, chiefly </p><p>and always, I feel my footing now so firm in this new world, that if </p><p>you will go with me to keep the ghosts off, I should really like to </p><p>visit the place this afternoon." </p><p>Edith demurred at first, but, finding that I was in earnest, consented </p><p>to accompany me. The rampart of earth thrown up from the excavation </p><p>was visible among the trees from the house, and a few steps brought us </p><p>to the spot. All remained as it was at the point when work was </p><p>interrupted by the discovery of the tenant of the chamber, save that </p><p>the door had been opened and the slab from the roof replaced. </p><p>Descending the sloping sides of the excavation, we went in at the door </p><p>and stood within the dimly-lighted room. </p><p>Everything was just as I had beheld it last on that evening one </p><p>hundred and thirteen years previous, just before closing my eyes for </p><p>that long sleep. I stood for some time silently looking about me. I </p><p>saw that my companion was furtively regarding me with an expression of </p><p>awed and sympathetic curiosity. I put out my hand to her and she </p><p>placed hers in it, the soft fingers responding with a reassuring </p><p>pressure to my clasp. Finally she whispered, "Had we not better go out </p><p>now? You must not try yourself too far. Oh, how strange it must be to </p><p>you!" </p><p>"On the contrary," I replied, "it does not seem strange; that is the </p><p>strangest part of it." </p><p>"Not strange?" she echoed. </p><p>"Even so," I replied. "The emotions with which you evidently credit </p><p>me, and which I anticipated would attend this visit, I simply do not </p><p>feel. I realize all that these surroundings suggest, but without the </p><p>agitation I expected. You can't be nearly as much surprised at this as </p><p>I am myself. Ever since that terrible morning when you came to my </p><p>help, I have tried to avoid thinking of my former life, just as I have </p><p>avoided coming here, for fear of the agitating effects. I am for all </p><p>the world like a man who has permitted an injured limb to lie </p><p>motionless under the impression that it is exquisitely sensitive, and </p><p>on trying to move it finds that it is paralyzed." </p><p>"Do you mean your memory is gone?"</p><p>"Not at all. I remember everything connected with my former life, but </p><p>with a total lack of keen sensation. I remember it for clearness as if </p><p>it had been but a day since then, but my feelings about what I </p><p>remember are as faint as if to my consciousness, as well as in fact, a </p><p>hundred years had intervened. Perhaps it is possible to explain this, </p><p>too. The effect of change in surroundings is like that of lapse of </p><p>time in making the past seem remote. When I first woke from that </p><p>trance, my former life appeared as yesterday, but now, since I have </p><p>learned to know my new surroundings, and to realize the prodigious </p><p>changes that have transformed the world, I no longer find it hard, but </p><p>very easy, to realize that I have slept a century. Can you conceive of </p><p>such a thing as living a hundred years in four days? It really seems </p><p>to me that I have done just that, and that it is this experience which </p><p>has given so remote and unreal an appearance to my former life. Can </p><p>you see how such a thing might be?" </p><p>"I can conceive it," replied Edith, meditatively, "and I think we </p><p>ought all to be thankful that it is so, for it will save you much </p><p>suffering, I am sure." </p><p>"Imagine," I said, in an effort to explain, as much to myself as to </p><p>her, the strangeness of my mental condition, "that a man first heard </p><p>of a bereavement many, many years, half a lifetime perhaps, after the </p><p>event occurred. I fancy his feeling would be perhaps something as mine </p><p>is. When I think of my friends in the world of that former day, and </p><p>the sorrow they must have felt for me, it is with a pensive pity, </p><p>rather than keen anguish, as of a sorrow long, long ago ended." </p><p>"You have told us nothing yet of your friends," said Edith. "Had you </p><p>many to mourn you?" </p><p>"Thank God, I had very few relatives, none nearer than cousins," I </p><p>replied. "But there was one, not a relative, but dearer to me than any </p><p>kin of blood. She had your name. She was to have been my wife soon. Ah </p><p>me!" </p><p>"Ah me!" sighed the Edith by my side. "Think of the heartache she must </p><p>have had." </p><p>Something in the deep feeling of this gentle girl touched a chord in </p><p>my benumbed heart. My eyes, before so dry, were flooded with the tears </p><p>that had till now refused to come. When I had regained my composure, I </p><p>saw that she too had been weeping freely. </p><p>"God bless your tender heart," I said. "Would you like to see her </p><p>picture?" </p><p>A small locket with Edith Bartlett's picture, secured about my neck </p><p>with a gold chain, had lain upon my breast all through that long </p><p>sleep, and removing this I opened and gave it to my companion. She </p><p>took it with eagerness, and after poring long over the sweet face, </p><p>touched the picture with her lips. </p><p>"I know that she was good and lovely enough to well deserve your </p><p>tears," she said; "but remember her heartache was over long ago, and </p><p>she has been in heaven for nearly a century." </p><p>It was indeed so. Whatever her sorrow had once been, for nearly a</p><p>century she had ceased to weep, and, my sudden passion spent, my own </p><p>tears dried away. I had loved her very dearly in my other life, but it </p><p>was a hundred years ago! I do not know but some may find in this </p><p>confession evidence of lack of feeling, but I think, perhaps, that </p><p>none can have had an experience sufficiently like mine to enable them </p><p>to judge me. As we were about to leave the chamber, my eye rested upon </p><p>the great iron safe which stood in one corner. Calling my companion's </p><p>attention to it, I said:-- </p><p>"This was my strong room as well as my sleeping room. In the safe </p><p>yonder are several thousand dollars in gold, and any amount of </p><p>securities. If I had known when I went to sleep that night just how </p><p>long my nap would be, I should still have thought that the gold was a </p><p>safe provision for my needs in any country or any century, however </p><p>distant. That a time would ever come when it would lose its purchasing </p><p>power, I should have considered the wildest of fancies. Nevertheless, </p><p>here I wake up to find myself among a people of whom a cartload of </p><p>gold will not procure a loaf of bread." </p><p>As might be expected, I did not succeed in impressing Edith that there </p><p>was anything remarkable in this fact. "Why in the world should it?" </p><p>she merely asked. </p><p>CHAPTER XXI. </p><p>It had been suggested by Dr. Leete that we should devote the next </p><p>morning to an inspection of the schools and colleges of the city, with </p><p>some attempt on his own part at an explanation of the educational </p><p>system of the twentieth century. </p><p>"You will see," said he, as we set out after breakfast, "many very </p><p>important differences between our methods of education and yours, but </p><p>the main difference is that nowadays all persons equally have those </p><p>opportunities of higher education which in your day only an </p><p>infinitesimal portion of the population enjoyed. We should think we </p><p>had gained nothing worth speaking of, in equalizing the physical </p><p>comfort of men, without this educational equality." </p><p>"The cost must be very great," I said. </p><p>"If it took half the revenue of the nation, nobody would grudge it," </p><p>replied Dr. Leete, "nor even if it took it all save a bare pittance. </p><p>But in truth the expense of educating ten thousand youth is not ten </p><p>nor five times that of educating one thousand. The principle which </p><p>makes all operations on a large scale proportionally cheaper than on a </p><p>small scale holds as to education also." </p><p>"College education was terribly expensive in my day," said I. </p><p>"If I have not been misinformed by our historians," Dr. Leete </p><p>answered, "it was not college education but college dissipation and </p><p>extravagance which cost so highly. The actual expense of your colleges </p><p>appears to have been very low, and would have been far lower if their </p><p>patronage had been greater. The higher education nowadays is as cheap </p><p>as the lower, as all grades of teachers, like all other workers,</p><p>receive the same support. We have simply added to the common school </p><p>system of compulsory education, in vogue in Massachusetts a hundred </p><p>years ago, a half dozen higher grades, carrying the youth to the age </p><p>of twenty-one and giving him what you used to call the education of a </p><p>gentleman, instead of turning him loose at fourteen or fifteen with no </p><p>mental equipment beyond reading, writing, and the multiplication </p><p>table." </p><p>"Setting aside the actual cost of these additional years of </p><p>education," I replied, "we should not have thought we could afford the </p><p>loss of time from industrial pursuits. Boys of the poorer classes </p><p>usually went to work at sixteen or younger, and knew their trade at </p><p>twenty." </p><p>"We should not concede you any gain even in material product by that </p><p>plan," Dr. Leete replied. "The greater efficiency which education </p><p>gives to all sorts of labor, except the rudest, makes up in a short </p><p>period for the time lost in acquiring it." </p><p>"We should also have been afraid," said I, "that a high education, </p><p>while it adapted men to the professions, would set them against manual </p><p>labor of all sorts." </p><p>"That was the effect of high education in your day, I have read," </p><p>replied the doctor; "and it was no wonder, for manual labor meant </p><p>association with a rude, coarse, and ignorant class of people. There </p><p>is no such class now. It was inevitable that such a feeling should </p><p>exist then, for the further reason that all men receiving a high </p><p>education were understood to be destined for the professions or for </p><p>wealthy leisure, and such an education in one neither rich nor </p><p>professional was a proof of disappointed aspirations, an evidence of </p><p>failure, a badge of inferiority rather than superiority. Nowadays, of </p><p>course, when the highest education is deemed necessary to fit a man </p><p>merely to live, without any reference to the sort of work he may do, </p><p>its possession conveys no such implication." </p><p>"After all," I remarked, "no amount of education can cure natural </p><p>dullness or make up for original mental deficiencies. Unless the </p><p>average natural mental capacity of men is much above its level in my </p><p>day, a high education must be pretty nearly thrown away on a large </p><p>element of the population. We used to hold that a certain amount of </p><p>susceptibility to educational influences is required to make a mind </p><p>worth cultivating, just as a certain natural fertility in soil is </p><p>required if it is to repay tilling." </p><p>"Ah," said Dr. Leete, "I am glad you used that illustration, for it is </p><p>just the one I would have chosen to set forth the modern view of </p><p>education. You say that land so poor that the product will not repay </p><p>the labor of tilling is not cultivated. Nevertheless, much land that </p><p>does not begin to repay tilling by its product was cultivated in your </p><p>day and is in ours. I refer to gardens, parks, lawns, and, in general, </p><p>to pieces of land so situated that, were they left to grow up to weeds </p><p>and briers, they would be eyesores and inconveniences to all about. </p><p>They are therefore tilled, and though their product is little, there </p><p>is yet no land that, in a wider sense, better repays cultivation. So </p><p>it is with the men and women with whom we mingle in the relations of </p><p>society, whose voices are always in our ears, whose behavior in </p><p>innumerable ways affects our enjoyment,--who are, in fact, as much </p><p>conditions of our lives as the air we breathe, or any of the physical</p><p>elements on which we depend. If, indeed, we could not afford to </p><p>educate everybody, we should choose the coarsest and dullest by </p><p>nature, rather than the brightest, to receive what education we could </p><p>give. The naturally refined and intellectual can better dispense with </p><p>aids to culture than those less fortunate in natural endowments. </p><p>"To borrow a phrase which was often used in your day, we should not </p><p>consider life worth living if we had to be surrounded by a population </p><p>of ignorant, boorish, coarse, wholly uncultivated men and women, as </p><p>was the plight of the few educated in your day. Is a man satisfied, </p><p>merely because he is perfumed himself, to mingle with a malodorous </p><p>crowd? Could he take more than a very limited satisfaction, even in a </p><p>palatial apartment, if the windows on all four sides opened into </p><p>stable yards? And yet just that was the situation of those considered </p><p>most fortunate as to culture and refinement in your day. I know that </p><p>the poor and ignorant envied the rich and cultured then; but to us the </p><p>latter, living as they did, surrounded by squalor and brutishness, </p><p>seem little better off than the former. The cultured man in your age </p><p>was like one up to the neck in a nauseous bog solacing himself with a </p><p>smelling bottle. You see, perhaps, now, how we look at this question </p><p>of universal high education. No single thing is so important to every </p><p>man as to have for neighbors intelligent, companionable persons. There </p><p>is nothing, therefore, which the nation can do for him that will </p><p>enhance so much his own happiness as to educate his neighbors. When it </p><p>fails to do so, the value of his own education to him is reduced by </p><p>half, and many of the tastes he has cultivated are made positive </p><p>sources of pain. </p><p>"To educate some to the highest degree, and leave the mass wholly </p><p>uncultivated, as you did, made the gap between them almost like that </p><p>between different natural species, which have no means of </p><p>communication. What could be more inhuman than this consequence of a </p><p>partial enjoyment of education! Its universal and equal enjoyment </p><p>leaves, indeed, the differences between men as to natural endowments </p><p>as marked as in a state of nature, but the level of the lowest is </p><p>vastly raised. Brutishness is eliminated. All have some inkling of the </p><p>humanities, some appreciation of the things of the mind, and an </p><p>admiration for the still higher culture they have fallen short of. </p><p>They have become capable of receiving and imparting, in various </p><p>degrees, but all in some measure, the pleasures and inspirations of a </p><p>refined social life. The cultured society of the nineteenth </p><p>century,--what did it consist of but here and there a few microscopic </p><p>oases in a vast, unbroken wilderness? The proportion of individuals </p><p>capable of intellectual sympathies or refined intercourse, to the mass </p><p>of their contemporaries, used to be so infinitesimal as to be in any </p><p>broad view of humanity scarcely worth mentioning. One generation of </p><p>the world to-day represents a greater volume of intellectual life than </p><p>any five centuries ever did before. </p><p>"There is still another point I should mention in stating the grounds </p><p>on which nothing less than the universality of the best education </p><p>could now be tolerated," continued Dr. Leete, "and that is, the </p><p>interest of the coming generation in having educated parents. To put </p><p>the matter in a nutshell, there are three main grounds on which our </p><p>educational system rests: first, the right of every man to the </p><p>completest education the nation can give him on his own account, as </p><p>necessary to his enjoyment of himself; second, the right of his </p><p>fellow-citizens to have him educated, as necessary to their enjoyment </p><p>of his society; third, the right of the unborn to be guaranteed an</p><p>intelligent and refined parentage." </p><p>I shall not describe in detail what I saw in the schools that day. </p><p>Having taken but slight interest in educational matters in my former </p><p>life, I could offer few comparisons of interest. Next to the fact of </p><p>the universality of the higher as well as the lower education, I was </p><p>most struck with the prominence given to physical culture, and the </p><p>fact that proficiency in athletic feats and games as well as in </p><p>scholarship had a place in the rating of the youth. </p><p>"The faculty of education," Dr. Leete explained, "is held to the same </p><p>responsibility for the bodies as for the minds of its charges. The </p><p>highest possible physical, as well as mental, development of every one </p><p>is the double object of a curriculum which lasts from the age of six </p><p>to that of twenty-one." </p><p>The magnificent health of the young people in the schools impressed me </p><p>strongly. My previous observations, not only of the notable personal </p><p>endowments of the family of my host, but of the people I had seen in </p><p>my walks abroad, had already suggested the idea that there must have </p><p>been something like a general improvement in the physical standard of </p><p>the race since my day, and now, as I compared these stalwart young men </p><p>and fresh, vigorous maidens with the young people I had seen in the </p><p>schools of the nineteenth century, I was moved to impart my thought to </p><p>Dr. Leete. He listened with great interest to what I said. </p><p>"Your testimony on this point," he declared, "is invaluable. We </p><p>believe that there has been such an improvement as you speak of, but </p><p>of course it could only be a matter of theory with us. It is an </p><p>incident of your unique position that you alone in the world of to-day </p><p>can speak with authority on this point. Your opinion, when you state </p><p>it publicly, will, I assure you, make a profound sensation. For the </p><p>rest it would be strange, certainly, if the race did not show an </p><p>improvement. In your day, riches debauched one class with idleness of </p><p>mind and body, while poverty sapped the vitality of the masses by </p><p>overwork, bad food, and pestilent homes. The labor required of </p><p>children, and the burdens laid on women, enfeebled the very springs of </p><p>life. Instead of these maleficent circumstances, all now enjoy the </p><p>most favorable conditions of physical life; the young are carefully </p><p>nurtured and studiously cared for; the labor which is required of all </p><p>is limited to the period of greatest bodily vigor, and is never </p><p>excessive; care for one's self and one's family, anxiety as to </p><p>livelihood, the strain of a ceaseless battle for life--all these </p><p>influences, which once did so much to wreck the minds and bodies of </p><p>men and women, are known no more. Certainly, an improvement of the </p><p>species ought to follow such a change. In certain specific respects we </p><p>know, indeed, that the improvement has taken place. Insanity, for </p><p>instance, which in the nineteenth century was so terribly common a </p><p>product of your insane mode of life, has almost disappeared, with its </p><p>alternative, suicide." </p><p>CHAPTER XXII. </p><p>We had made an appointment to meet the ladies at the dining-hall for </p><p>dinner, after which, having some engagement, they left us sitting at</p><p>table there, discussing our wine and cigars with a multitude of other </p><p>matters. </p><p>"Doctor," said I, in the course of our talk, "morally speaking, your </p><p>social system is one which I should be insensate not to admire in </p><p>comparison with any previously in vogue in the world, and especially </p><p>with that of my own most unhappy century. If I were to fall into a </p><p>mesmeric sleep to-night as lasting as that other, and meanwhile the </p><p>course of time were to take a turn backward instead of forward, and I </p><p>were to wake up again in the nineteenth century, when I had told my </p><p>friends what I had seen, they would every one admit that your world </p><p>was a paradise of order, equity, and felicity. But they were a very </p><p>practical people, my contemporaries, and after expressing their </p><p>admiration for the moral beauty and material splendor of the system, </p><p>they would presently begin to cipher and ask how you got the money to </p><p>make everybody so happy; for certainly, to support the whole nation at </p><p>a rate of comfort, and even luxury, such as I see around me, must </p><p>involve vastly greater wealth than the nation produced in my day. Now, </p><p>while I could explain to them pretty nearly everything else of the </p><p>main features of your system, I should quite fail to answer this </p><p>question, and failing there, they would tell me, for they were very </p><p>close cipherers, that I had been dreaming; nor would they ever believe </p><p>anything else. In my day, I know that the total annual product of the </p><p>nation, although it might have been divided with absolute equality, </p><p>would not have come to more than three or four hundred dollars per </p><p>head, not very much more than enough to supply the necessities of life </p><p>with few or any of its comforts. How is it that you have so much </p><p>more?" </p><p>"That is a very pertinent question, Mr. West," replied Dr. Leete, "and </p><p>I should not blame your friends, in the case you supposed, if they </p><p>declared your story all moonshine, failing a satisfactory reply to it. </p><p>It is a question which I cannot answer exhaustively at any one </p><p>sitting, and as for the exact statistics to bear out my general </p><p>statements, I shall have to refer you for them to books in my library, </p><p>but it would certainly be a pity to leave you to be put to confusion </p><p>by your old acquaintances, in case of the contingency you speak of, </p><p>for lack of a few suggestions. </p><p>"Let us begin with a number of small items wherein we economize wealth </p><p>as compared with you. We have no national, state, county, or </p><p>municipal debts, or payments on their account. We have no sort of </p><p>military or naval expenditures for men or materials, no army, navy, or </p><p>militia. We have no revenue service, no swarm of tax assessors and </p><p>collectors. As regards our judiciary, police, sheriffs, and jailers, </p><p>the force which Massachusetts alone kept on foot in your day far more </p><p>than suffices for the nation now. We have no criminal class preying </p><p>upon the wealth of society as you had. The number of persons, more or </p><p>less absolutely lost to the working force through physical disability, </p><p>of the lame, sick, and debilitated, which constituted such a burden on </p><p>the able-bodied in your day, now that all live under conditions of </p><p>health and comfort, has shrunk to scarcely perceptible proportions, </p><p>and with every generation is becoming more completely eliminated. </p><p>"Another item wherein we save is the disuse of money and the thousand </p><p>occupations connected with financial operations of all sorts, whereby </p><p>an army of men was formerly taken away from useful employments. Also </p><p>consider that the waste of the very rich in your day on inordinate </p><p>personal luxury has ceased, though, indeed, this item might easily be</p><p>over-estimated. Again, consider that there are no idlers now, rich or </p><p>poor,--no drones. </p><p>"A very important cause of former poverty was the vast waste of labor </p><p>and materials which resulted from domestic washing and cooking, and </p><p>the performing separately of innumerable other tasks to which we apply </p><p>the co�perative plan. </p><p>"A larger economy than any of these--yes, of all together--is effected </p><p>by the organization of our distributing system, by which the work done </p><p>once by the merchants, traders, storekeepers, with their various </p><p>grades of jobbers, wholesalers, retailers, agents, commercial </p><p>travelers, and middlemen of all sorts, with an excessive waste of </p><p>energy in needless transportation and interminable handlings, is </p><p>performed by one-tenth the number of hands and an unnecessary turn of </p><p>not one wheel. Something of what our distributing system is like you </p><p>know. Our statisticians calculate that one eightieth part of our </p><p>workers suffices for all the processes of distribution which in your </p><p>day required one eighth of the population, so much being withdrawn </p><p>from the force engaged in productive labor." </p><p>"I begin to see," I said, "where you get your greater wealth." </p><p>"I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but you scarcely do as yet. </p><p>The economies I have mentioned thus far, in the aggregate, considering </p><p>the labor they would save directly and indirectly through saving of </p><p>material, might possibly be equivalent to the addition to your annual </p><p>production of wealth of one-half its former total. These items are, </p><p>however, scarcely worth mentioning in comparison with other prodigious </p><p>wastes, now saved, which resulted inevitably from leaving the </p><p>industries of the nation to private enterprise. However great the </p><p>economies your contemporaries might have devised in the consumption </p><p>of products, and however marvelous the progress of mechanical </p><p>invention, they could never have raised themselves out of the slough </p><p>of poverty so long as they held to that system. </p><p>"No mode more wasteful for utilizing human energy could be devised, </p><p>and for the credit of the human intellect it should be remembered that </p><p>the system never was devised, but was merely a survival from the rude </p><p>ages when the lack of social organization made any sort of co�peration </p><p>impossible." </p><p>"I will readily admit," I said, "that our industrial system was </p><p>ethically very bad, but as a mere wealth-making machine, apart from </p><p>moral aspects, it seemed to us admirable." </p><p>"As I said," responded the doctor, "the subject is too large to </p><p>discuss at length now, but if you are really interested to know the </p><p>main criticisms which we moderns make on your industrial system as </p><p>compared with our own, I can touch briefly on some of them. </p><p>"The wastes which resulted from leaving the conduct of industry to </p><p>irresponsible individuals, wholly without mutual understanding or </p><p>concert, were mainly four: first, the waste by mistaken undertakings; </p><p>second, the waste from the competition and mutual hostility of those </p><p>engaged in industry; third, the waste by periodical gluts and crises, </p><p>with the consequent interruptions of industry; fourth, the waste from </p><p>idle capital and labor, at all times. Any one of these four great </p><p>leaks, were all the others stopped, would suffice to make the</p><p>difference between wealth and poverty on the part of a nation. </p><p>"Take the waste by mistaken undertakings, to begin with. In your day </p><p>the production and distribution of commodities being without concert </p><p>or organization, there was no means of knowing just what demand there </p><p>was for any class of products, or what was the rate of supply. </p><p>Therefore, any enterprise by a private capitalist was always a </p><p>doubtful experiment. The projector having no general view of the field </p><p>of industry and consumption, such as our government has, could never </p><p>be sure either what the people wanted, or what arrangements other </p><p>capitalists were making to supply them. In view of this, we are not </p><p>surprised to learn that the chances were considered several to one in </p><p>favor of the failure of any given business enterprise, and that it was </p><p>common for persons who at last succeeded in making a hit to have </p><p>failed repeatedly. If a shoemaker, for every pair of shoes he </p><p>succeeded in completing, spoiled the leather of four or five pair, </p><p>besides losing the time spent on them, he would stand about the same </p><p>chance of getting rich as your contemporaries did with their system of </p><p>private enterprise, and its average of four or five failures to one </p><p>success. </p><p>"The next of the great wastes was that from competition. The field of </p><p>industry was a battlefield as wide as the world, in which the workers </p><p>wasted, in assailing one another, energies which, if expended in </p><p>concerted effort, as to-day, would have enriched all. As for mercy or </p><p>quarter in this warfare, there was absolutely no suggestion of it. To </p><p>deliberately enter a field of business and destroy the enterprises of </p><p>those who had occupied it previously, in order to plant one's own </p><p>enterprise on their ruins, was an achievement which never failed to </p><p>command popular admiration. Nor is there any stretch of fancy in </p><p>comparing this sort of struggle with actual warfare, so far as </p><p>concerns the mental agony and physical suffering which attended the </p><p>struggle, and the misery which overwhelmed the defeated and those </p><p>dependent on them. Now nothing about your age is, at first sight, more </p><p>astounding to a man of modern times than the fact that men engaged in </p><p>the same industry, instead of fraternizing as comrades and co-laborers </p><p>to a common end, should have regarded each other as rivals and enemies </p><p>to be throttled and overthrown. This certainly seems like sheer </p><p>madness, a scene from bedlam. But more closely regarded, it is seen to </p><p>be no such thing. Your contemporaries, with their mutual </p><p>throat-cutting, knew very well what they were at. The producers of the </p><p>nineteenth century were not, like ours, working together for the </p><p>maintenance of the community, but each solely for his own maintenance </p><p>at the expense of the community. If, in working to this end, he at the </p><p>same time increased the aggregate wealth, that was merely incidental. </p><p>It was just as feasible and as common to increase one's private hoard </p><p>by practices injurious to the general welfare. One's worst enemies </p><p>were necessarily those of his own trade, for, under your plan of </p><p>making private profit the motive of production, a scarcity of the </p><p>article he produced was what each particular producer desired. It was </p><p>for his interest that no more of it should be produced than he himself </p><p>could produce. To secure this consummation as far as circumstances </p><p>permitted, by killing off and discouraging those engaged in his line </p><p>of industry, was his constant effort. When he had billed off all he </p><p>could, his policy was to combine with those he could not kill, and </p><p>convert their mutual warfare into a warfare upon the public at large </p><p>by cornering the market, as I believe you used to call it, and putting </p><p>up prices to the highest point people would stand before going without </p><p>the goods. The day dream of the nineteenth century producer was to</p><p>gain absolute control of the supply of some necessity of life, so that </p><p>he might keep the public at the verge of starvation, and always </p><p>command famine prices for what he supplied. This, Mr. West, is what </p><p>was called in the nineteenth century a system of production. I will </p><p>leave it to you if it does not seem, in some of its aspects, a great </p><p>deal more like a system for preventing production. Some time when we </p><p>have plenty of leisure I am going to ask you to sit down with me and </p><p>try to make me comprehend, as I never yet could, though I have </p><p>studied the matter a great deal, how such shrewd fellows as your </p><p>contemporaries appear to have been in many respects ever came to </p><p>entrust the business of providing for the community to a class whose </p><p>interest it was to starve it. I assure you that the wonder with us is, </p><p>not that the world did not get rich under such a system, but that it </p><p>did not perish outright from want. This wonder increases as we go on </p><p>to consider some of the other prodigious wastes that characterized it. </p><p>"Apart from the waste of labor and capital by misdirected industry, </p><p>and that from the constant bloodletting of your industrial warfare, </p><p>your system was liable to periodical convulsions, overwhelming alike </p><p>the wise and unwise, the successful cut-throat as well as his victim. </p><p>I refer to the business crises at intervals of five to ten years, </p><p>which wrecked the industries of the nation, prostrating all weak </p><p>enterprises and crippling the strongest, and were followed by long </p><p>periods, often of many years, of so-called dull times, during which </p><p>the capitalists slowly regathered their dissipated strength while the </p><p>laboring classes starved and rioted. Then would ensue another brief </p><p>season of prosperity, followed in turn by another crisis and the </p><p>ensuing years of exhaustion. As commerce developed, making the nations </p><p>mutually dependent, these arises became world-wide, while the </p><p>obstinacy of the ensuing state of collapse increased with the area </p><p>affected by the convulsions, and the consequent lack of rallying </p><p>centres. In proportion as the industries of the world multiplied and </p><p>became complex, and the volume of capital involved was increased, </p><p>these business cataclysms became more frequent, till, in the latter </p><p>part of the nineteenth century, there were two years of bad times to </p><p>one of good, and the system of industry, never before so extended or </p><p>so imposing, seemed in danger of collapsing by its own weight. After </p><p>endless discussions, your economists appear by that time to have </p><p>settled down to the despairing conclusion that there was no more </p><p>possibility of preventing or controlling these crises than if they had </p><p>been drouths or hurricanes. It only remained to endure them as </p><p>necessary evils, and when they had passed over to build up again the </p><p>shattered structure of industry, as dwellers in an earthquake country </p><p>keep on rebuilding their cities on the same site. </p><p>"So far as considering the causes of the trouble inherent in their </p><p>industrial system, your contemporaries were certainly correct. They </p><p>were in its very basis, and must needs become more and more maleficent </p><p>as the business fabric grew in size and complexity. One of these </p><p>causes was the lack of any common control of the different industries, </p><p>and the consequent impossibility of their orderly and co�rdinate </p><p>development. It inevitably resulted from this lack that they were </p><p>continually getting out of step with one another and out of relation </p><p>with the demand. </p><p>"Of the latter there was no criterion such as organized distribution </p><p>gives us, and the first notice that it had been exceeded in any group </p><p>of industries was a crash of prices, bankruptcy of producers, stoppage </p><p>of production, reduction of wages, or discharge of workmen. This</p><p>process was constantly going on in many industries, even in what were </p><p>called good times, but a crisis took place only when the industries </p><p>affected were extensive. The markets then were glutted with goods, of </p><p>which nobody wanted beyond a sufficiency at any price. The wages and </p><p>profits of those making the glutted classes of goods being reduced or </p><p>wholly stopped, their purchasing power as consumers of other classes </p><p>of goods, of which there was no natural glut, was taken away, and, as </p><p>a consequence, goods of which there was no natural glut became </p><p>artificially glutted, till their prices also were broken down, and </p><p>their makers thrown out of work and deprived of income. The crisis was </p><p>by this time fairly under way, and nothing could check it till a </p><p>nation's ransom had been wasted. </p><p>"A cause, also inherent in your system, which often produced and </p><p>always terribly aggravated crises, was the machinery of money and </p><p>credit. Money was essential when production was in many private hands, </p><p>and buying and selling was necessary to secure what one wanted. It </p><p>was, however, open to the obvious objection of substituting for food, </p><p>clothing, and other things a merely conventional representative of </p><p>them. The confusion of mind which this favored, between goods and </p><p>their representative, led the way to the credit system and its </p><p>prodigious illusions. Already accustomed to accept money for </p><p>commodities, the people next accepted promises for money, and ceased </p><p>to look at all behind the representative for the thing represented. </p><p>Money was a sign of real commodities, but credit was but the sign of a </p><p>sign. There was a natural limit to gold and silver, that is, money </p><p>proper, but none to credit, and the result was that the volume of </p><p>credit, that is, the promises of money, ceased to bear any </p><p>ascertainable proportion to the money, still less to the commodities, </p><p>actually in existence. Under such a system, frequent and periodical </p><p>crises were necessitated by a law as absolute as that which brings to </p><p>the ground a structure overhanging its centre of gravity. It was one </p><p>of your fictions that the government and the banks authorized by it </p><p>alone issued money; but everybody who gave a dollar's credit issued </p><p>money to that extent, which was as good as any to swell the </p><p>circulation till the next crises. The great extension of the credit </p><p>system was a characteristic of the latter part of the nineteenth </p><p>century, and accounts largely for the almost incessant business crises </p><p>which marked that period. Perilous as credit was, you could not </p><p>dispense with its use, for, lacking any national or other public </p><p>organization of the capital of the country, it was the only means you </p><p>had for concentrating and directing it upon industrial enterprises. It </p><p>was in this way a most potent means for exaggerating the chief peril </p><p>of the private enterprise system of industry by enabling particular </p><p>industries to absorb disproportionate amounts of the disposable </p><p>capital of the country, and thus prepare disaster. Business </p><p>enterprises were always vastly in debt for advances of credit, both to </p><p>one another and to the banks and capitalists, and the prompt </p><p>withdrawal of this credit at the first sign of a crisis was generally </p><p>the precipitating cause of it. </p><p>"It was the misfortune of your contemporaries that they had to cement </p><p>their business fabric with a material which an accident might at any </p><p>moment turn into an explosive. They were in the plight of a man </p><p>building a house with dynamite for mortar, for credit can be compared </p><p>with nothing else. </p><p>"If you would see how needless were these convulsions of business </p><p>which I have been speaking of, and how entirely they resulted from</p><p>leaving industry to private and unorganized management, just consider </p><p>the working of our system. Overproduction in special lines, which was </p><p>the great hobgoblin of your day, is impossible now, for by the </p><p>connection between distribution and production supply is geared to </p><p>demand like an engine to the governor which regulates its speed. Even </p><p>suppose by an error of judgment an excessive production of some </p><p>commodity. The consequent slackening or cessation of production in </p><p>that line throws nobody out of employment. The suspended workers are </p><p>at once found occupation in some other department of the vast workshop </p><p>and lose only the time spent in changing, while, as for the glut, the </p><p>business of the nation is large enough to carry any amount of product </p><p>manufactured in excess of demand till the latter overtakes it. In such </p><p>a case of over-production, as I have supposed, there is not with us, </p><p>as with you, any complex machinery to get out of order and magnify a </p><p>thousand times the original mistake. Of course, having not even money, </p><p>we still less have credit. All estimates deal directly with the real </p><p>things, the flour, iron, wood, wool, and labor, of which money and </p><p>credit were for you the very misleading representatives. In our </p><p>calculations of cost there can be no mistakes. Out of the annual </p><p>product the amount necessary for the support of the people is taken, </p><p>and the requisite labor to produce the next year's consumption </p><p>provided for. The residue of the material and labor represents what </p><p>can be safely expended in improvements. If the crops are bad, the </p><p>surplus for that year is less than usual, that is all. Except for </p><p>slight occasional effects of such natural causes, there are no </p><p>fluctuations of business; the material prosperity of the nation flows </p><p>on uninterruptedly from generation to generation, like an ever </p><p>broadening and deepening river. </p><p>"Your business crises, Mr. West," continued the doctor, "like either </p><p>of the great wastes I mentioned before, were enough, alone, to have </p><p>kept your noses to the grindstone forever; but I have still to speak </p><p>of one other great cause of your poverty, and that was the idleness of </p><p>a great part of your capital and labor. With us it is the business of </p><p>the administration to keep in constant employment every ounce of </p><p>available capital and labor in the country. In your day there was no </p><p>general control of either capital or labor, and a large part of both </p><p>failed to find employment. 'Capital,' you used to say, 'is naturally </p><p>timid,' and it would certainly have been reckless if it had not been </p><p>timid in an epoch when there was a large preponderance of probability </p><p>that any particular business venture would end in failure. There was </p><p>no time when, if security could have been guaranteed it, the amount of </p><p>capital devoted to productive industry could not have been greatly </p><p>increased. The proportion of it so employed underwent constant </p><p>extraordinary fluctuations, according to the greater or less feeling </p><p>of uncertainty as to the stability of the industrial situation, so </p><p>that the output of the national industries greatly varied in different </p><p>years. But for the same reason that the amount of capital employed at </p><p>times of special insecurity was far less than at times of somewhat </p><p>greater security, a very large proportion was never employed at all, </p><p>because the hazard of business was always very great in the best of </p><p>times. </p><p>"It should be also noted that the great amount of capital always </p><p>seeking employment where tolerable safety could be insured terribly </p><p>embittered the competition between capitalists when a promising </p><p>opening presented itself. The idleness of capital, the result of its </p><p>timidity, of course meant the idleness of labor in corresponding </p><p>degree. Moreover, every change in the adjustments of business, every</p><p>slightest alteration in the condition of commerce or manufactures, not </p><p>to speak of the innumerable business failures that took place yearly, </p><p>even in the best of times, were constantly throwing a multitude of men </p><p>out of employment for periods of weeks or months, or even years. A </p><p>great number of these seekers after employment were constantly </p><p>traversing the country, becoming in time professional vagabonds, then </p><p>criminals. 'Give us work!' was the cry of an army of the unemployed at </p><p>nearly all seasons, and in seasons of dullness in business this army </p><p>swelled to a host so vast and desperate as to threaten the stability </p><p>of the government. Could there conceivably be a more conclusive </p><p>demonstration of the imbecility of the system of private enterprise as </p><p>a method for enriching a nation than the fact that, in an age of such </p><p>general poverty and want of everything, capitalists had to throttle </p><p>one another to find a safe chance to invest their capital and workmen </p><p>rioted and burned because they could find no work to do? </p><p>"Now, Mr. West," continued Dr. Leete, "I want you to bear in mind that </p><p>these points of which I have been speaking indicate only negatively </p><p>the advantages of the national organization of industry by showing </p><p>certain fatal defects and prodigious imbecilities of the systems of </p><p>private enterprise which are not found in it. These alone, you must </p><p>admit, would pretty well explain why the nation is so much richer than </p><p>in your day. But the larger half of our advantage over you, the </p><p>positive side of it, I have yet barely spoken of. Supposing the system </p><p>of private enterprise in industry were without any of the great leaks </p><p>I have mentioned; that there were no waste on account of misdirected </p><p>effort growing out of mistakes as to the demand, and inability to </p><p>command a general view of the industrial field. Suppose, also, there </p><p>were no neutralizing and duplicating of effort from competition. </p><p>Suppose, also, there were no waste from business panics and crises </p><p>through bankruptcy and long interruptions of industry, and also none </p><p>from the idleness of capital and labor. Supposing these evils, which </p><p>are essential to the conduct of industry by capital in private hands, </p><p>could all be miraculously prevented, and the system yet retained; even </p><p>then the superiority of the results attained by the modern industrial </p><p>system of national control would remain overwhelming. </p><p>"You used to have some pretty large textile manufacturing </p><p>establishments, even in your day, although not comparable with ours. </p><p>No doubt you have visited these great mills in your time, covering </p><p>acres of ground, employing thousands of hands, and combining under one </p><p>roof, under one control, the hundred distinct processes between, say, </p><p>the cotton bale and the bale of glossy calicoes. You have admired the </p><p>vast economy of labor as of mechanical force resulting from the </p><p>perfect interworking with the rest of every wheel and every hand. No </p><p>doubt you have reflected how much less the same force of workers </p><p>employed in that factory would accomplish if they were scattered, each </p><p>man working independently. Would you think it an exaggeration to say </p><p>that the utmost product of those workers, working thus apart, however </p><p>amicable their relations might be, was increased not merely by a </p><p>percentage, but many fold, when their efforts were organized under one </p><p>control? Well now, Mr. West, the organization of the industry of the </p><p>nation under a single control, so that all its processes interlock, </p><p>has multiplied the total product over the utmost that could be done </p><p>under the former system, even leaving out of account the four great </p><p>wastes mentioned, in the same proportion that the product of those </p><p>millworkers was increased by co�peration. The effectiveness of the </p><p>working force of a nation, under the myriad-headed leadership of </p><p>private capital, even if the leaders were not mutual enemies, as</p><p>compared with that which it attains under a single head, may be </p><p>likened to the military efficiency of a mob, or a horde of barbarians </p><p>with a thousand petty chiefs, as compared with that of a disciplined </p><p>army under one general--such a fighting machine, for example, as the </p><p>German army in the time of Von Moltke." </p><p>"After what you have told me," I said, "I do not so much wonder that </p><p>the nation is richer now than then, but that you are not all </p><p>Croesuses." </p><p>"Well," replied Dr. Leete, "we are pretty well off. The rate at which </p><p>we live is as luxurious as we could wish. The rivalry of ostentation, </p><p>which in your day led to extravagance in no way conducive to comfort, </p><p>finds no place, of course, in a society of people absolutely equal in </p><p>resources, and our ambition stops at the surroundings which minister </p><p>to the enjoyment of life. We might, indeed, have much larger incomes, </p><p>individually, if we chose so to use the surplus of our product, but we </p><p>prefer to expend it upon public works and pleasures in which all </p><p>share, upon public halls and buildings, art galleries, bridges, </p><p>statuary, means or transit, and the conveniences of our cities, great </p><p>musical and theatrical exhibitions, and in providing on a vast scale </p><p>for the recreations of the people. You have not begun to see how we </p><p>live yet, Mr. West. At home we have comfort, but the splendor of our </p><p>life is, on its social side, that which we share with our fellows. </p><p>When you know more of it you will see where the money goes, as you </p><p>used to say, and I think you will agree that we do well so to expend </p><p>it." </p><p>"I suppose," observed Dr. Leete, as we strolled homeward from the </p><p>dining hall, "that no reflection would have cut the men of your </p><p>wealth-worshiping century more keenly than the suggestion that they </p><p>did not know how to make money. Nevertheless, that is just the verdict </p><p>history has passed on them. Their system of unorganized and </p><p>antagonistic industries was as absurd economically as it was morally </p><p>abominable. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial </p><p>production selfishness is suicide. Competition, which is the instinct </p><p>of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while </p><p>combination is the secret of efficient production; and not till the </p><p>idea of increasing the individual hoard gives place to the idea of </p><p>increasing the common stock can industrial combination be realized, </p><p>and the acquisition of wealth really begin. Even if the principle of </p><p>share and share alike for all men were not the only humane and </p><p>rational basis for a society, we should still enforce it as </p><p>economically expedient, seeing that until the disintegrating influence </p><p>of self-seeking is suppressed no true concert of industry is </p><p>possible." </p><p>CHAPTER XXIII. </p><p>That evening, as I sat with Edith in the music room, listening to some </p><p>pieces in the programme of that day which had attracted my notice, I </p><p>took advantage of an interval in the music to say, "I have a question </p><p>to ask you which I fear is rather indiscreet." </p><p>"I am quite sure it is not that," she replied, encouragingly.</p><p>"I am in the position of an eavesdropper," I continued, "who, having </p><p>overheard a little of a matter not intended for him, though seeming to </p><p>concern him, has the impudence to come to the speaker for the rest." </p><p>"An eavesdropper!" she repeated, looking puzzled. </p><p>"Yes," I said, "but an excusable one, as I think you will admit." </p><p>"This is very mysterious," she replied. </p><p>"Yes," said I, "so mysterious that often I have doubted whether I </p><p>really overheard at all what I am going to ask you about, or only </p><p>dreamed it. I want you to tell me. The matter is this: When I was </p><p>coming out of that sleep of a century, the first impression of which I </p><p>was conscious was of voices talking around me, voices that afterwards </p><p>I recognized as your father's, your mother's, and your own. First, I </p><p>remember your father's voice saying, 'He is going to open his eyes. He </p><p>had better see but one person at first.' Then you said, if I did not </p><p>dream it all, 'Promise me, then, that you will not tell him.' Your </p><p>father seemed to hesitate about promising, but you insisted, and your </p><p>mother interposing, he finally promised, and when I opened my eyes I </p><p>saw only him." </p><p>I had been quite serious when I said that I was not sure that I had </p><p>not dreamed the conversation I fancied I had overheard, so </p><p>incomprehensible was it that these people should know anything of me, </p><p>a contemporary of their great-grandparents, which I did not know </p><p>myself. But when I saw the effect of my words upon Edith, I knew that </p><p>it was no dream, but another mystery, and a more puzzling one than any </p><p>I had before encountered. For from the moment that the drift of my </p><p>question became apparent, she showed indications of the most acute </p><p>embarrassment. Her eyes, always so frank and direct in expression, had </p><p>dropped in a panic before mine, while her face crimsoned from neck to </p><p>forehead. </p><p>"Pardon me," I said, as soon as I had recovered from bewilderment at </p><p>the extraordinary effect of my words. "It seems, then, that I was not </p><p>dreaming. There is some secret, something about me, which you are </p><p>withholding from me. Really, doesn't it seem a little hard that a </p><p>person in my position should not be given all the information possible </p><p>concerning himself?" </p><p>"It does not concern you--that is, not directly. It is not about </p><p>you--exactly," she replied, scarcely audibly. </p><p>"But it concerns me in some way," I persisted. "It must be something </p><p>that would interest me." </p><p>"I don't know even that," she replied, venturing a momentary glance at </p><p>my face, furiously blushing, and yet with a quaint smile flickering </p><p>about her lips which betrayed a certain perception of humor in the </p><p>situation despite its embarrassment,--"I am not sure that it would </p><p>even interest you." </p><p>"Your father would have told me," I insisted, with an accent of </p><p>reproach. "It was you who forbade him. He thought I ought to know." </p><p>She did not reply. She was so entirely charming in her confusion that</p><p>I was now prompted, as much by the desire to prolong the situation as </p><p>by my original curiosity, to importune her further. </p><p>"Am I never to know? Will you never tell me?" I said. </p><p>"It depends," she answered, after a long pause. </p><p>"On what?" I persisted. </p><p>"Ah, you ask too much," she replied. Then, raising to mine a face </p><p>which inscrutable eyes, flushed cheeks, and smiling lips combined to </p><p>render perfectly bewitching, she added, "What should you think if I </p><p>said that it depended on--yourself?" </p><p>"On myself?" I echoed. "How can that possibly be?" </p><p>"Mr. West, we are losing some charming music," was her only reply to </p><p>this, and turning to the telephone, at a touch of her finger she set </p><p>the air to swaying to the rhythm of an adagio. After that she took </p><p>good care that the music should leave no opportunity for conversation. </p><p>She kept her face averted from me, and pretended to be absorbed in the </p><p>airs, but that it was a mere pretense the crimson tide standing at </p><p>flood in her cheeks sufficiently betrayed. </p><p>When at length she suggested that I might have heard all I cared to, </p><p>for that time, and we rose to leave the room, she came straight up to </p><p>me and said, without raising her eyes, "Mr. West, you say I have been </p><p>good to you. I have not been particularly so, but if you think I have, </p><p>I want you to promise me that you will not try again to make me tell </p><p>you this thing you have asked to-night, and that you will not try to </p><p>find it out from any one else,--my father or mother, for instance." </p><p>To such an appeal there was but one reply possible. "Forgive me for </p><p>distressing you. Of course I will promise," I said. "I would never </p><p>have asked you if I had fancied it could distress you. But do you </p><p>blame me for being curious?" </p><p>"I do not blame you at all." </p><p>"And some time," I added, "if I do not tease you, you may tell me of </p><p>your own accord. May I not hope so?" </p><p>"Perhaps," she murmured. </p><p>"Only perhaps?" </p><p>Looking up, she read my face with a quick, deep glance. "Yes," she </p><p>said, "I think I may tell you--some time;" and so our conversation </p><p>ended, for she gave me no chance to say anything more. </p><p>That night I don't think even Dr. Pillsbury could have put me to </p><p>sleep, till toward morning at least. Mysteries had been my accustomed </p><p>food for days now, but none had before confronted me at once so </p><p>mysterious and so fascinating as this, the solution of which Edith </p><p>Leete had forbidden me even to seek. It was a double mystery. How, in </p><p>the first place, was it conceivable that she should know any secret </p><p>about me, a stranger from a strange age? In the second place, even if </p><p>she should know such a secret, how account for the agitating effect </p><p>which the knowledge of it seemed to have upon her? There are puzzles</p><p>so difficult that one cannot even get so far as a conjecture as to the </p><p>solution, and this seemed one of them. I am usually of too practical a </p><p>turn to waste time on such conundrums; but the difficulty of a riddle </p><p>embodied in a beautiful young girl does not detract from its </p><p>fascination. In general, no doubt, maidens' blushes may be safely </p><p>assumed to tell the same tale to young men in all ages and races, but </p><p>to give that interpretation to Edith's crimson cheeks would, </p><p>considering my position and the length of time I had known her, and </p><p>still more the fact that this mystery dated from before I had known </p><p>her at all, be a piece of utter fatuity. And yet she was an angel, and </p><p>I should not have been a young man if reason and common sense had been </p><p>able quite to banish a roseate tinge from my dreams that night. </p><p>CHAPTER XXIV. </p><p>In the morning I went down stairs early in the hope of seeing Edith </p><p>alone. In this, however, I was disappointed. Not finding her in the </p><p>house, I sought her in the garden, but she was not there. In the </p><p>course of my wanderings I visited the underground chamber, and sat </p><p>down there to rest. Upon the reading table in the chamber several </p><p>periodicals and newspapers lay, and thinking that Dr. Leete might be </p><p>interested in glancing over a Boston daily of 1887, I brought one of </p><p>the papers with me into the house when I came. </p><p>At breakfast I met Edith. She blushed as she greeted me, but was </p><p>perfectly self-possessed. As we sat at table, Dr. Leete amused himself </p><p>with looking over the paper I had brought in. There was in it, as in </p><p>all the newspapers of that date, a great deal about the labor </p><p>troubles, strikes, lockouts, boycotts, the programmes of labor </p><p>parties, and the wild threats of the anarchists. </p><p>"By the way," said I, as the doctor read aloud to us some of these </p><p>items, "what part did the followers of the red flag take in the </p><p>establishment of the new order of things? They were making </p><p>considerable noise the last thing that I knew." </p><p>"They had nothing to do with it except to hinder it, of course," </p><p>replied Dr. Leete. "They did that very effectually while they lasted, </p><p>for their talk so disgusted people as to deprive the best considered </p><p>projects for social reform of a hearing. The subsidizing of those </p><p>fellows was one of the shrewdest moves of the opponents of reform." </p><p>"Subsidizing them!" I exclaimed in astonishment. </p><p>"Certainly," replied Dr. Leete. "No historical authority nowadays </p><p>doubts that they were paid by the great monopolies to wave the red </p><p>flag and talk about burning, sacking, and blowing people up, in order, </p><p>by alarming the timid, to head off any real reforms. What astonishes </p><p>me most is that you should have fallen into the trap so </p><p>unsuspectingly." </p><p>"What are your grounds for believing that the red flag party was </p><p>subsidized?" I inquired. </p><p>"Why simply because they must have seen that their course made a</p><p>thousand enemies of their professed cause to one friend. Not to </p><p>suppose that they were hired for the work is to credit them with an </p><p>inconceivable folly.[4] In the United States, of all countries, no </p><p>party could intelligently expect to carry its point without first </p><p>winning over to its ideas a majority of the nation, as the national </p><p>party eventually did." </p><p>"The national party!" I exclaimed. "That must have arisen after my </p><p>day. I suppose it was one of the labor parties." </p><p>"Oh no!" replied the doctor. "The labor parties, as such, never could </p><p>have accomplished anything on a large or permanent scale. For purposes </p><p>of national scope, their basis as merely class organizations was too </p><p>narrow. It was not till a rearrangement of the industrial and social </p><p>system on a higher ethical basis, and for the more efficient </p><p>production of wealth, was recognized as the interest, not of one </p><p>class, but equally of all classes, of rich and poor, cultured and </p><p>ignorant, old and young, weak and strong, men and women, that there </p><p>was any prospect that it would be achieved. Then the national party </p><p>arose to carry it out by political methods. It probably took that name </p><p>because its aim was to nationalize the functions of production and </p><p>distribution. Indeed, it could not well have had any other name, for </p><p>its purpose was to realize the idea of the nation with a grandeur and </p><p>completeness never before conceived, not as an association of men for </p><p>certain merely political functions affecting their happiness only </p><p>remotely and superficially, but as a family, a vital union, a common </p><p>life, a mighty heaven-touching tree whose leaves are its people, fed </p><p>from its veins, and feeding it in turn. The most patriotic of all </p><p>possible parties, it sought to justify patriotism and raise it from </p><p>an instinct to a rational devotion, by making the native land truly a </p><p>father land, a father who kept the people alive and was not merely an </p><p>idol for which they were expected to die." </p><p>[Footnote 4: I fully admit the difficulty of accounting for the course </p><p>of the anarchists on any other theory than that they were subsidized </p><p>by the capitalists, but, at the same time, there is no doubt that the </p><p>theory is wholly erroneous. It certainly was not held at the time by </p><p>any one, though it may seem so obvious in the retrospect.] </p><p>CHAPTER XXV. </p><p>The personality of Edith Leete had naturally impressed me strongly </p><p>ever since I had come, in so strange a manner, to be an inmate of her </p><p>father's house, and it was to be expected that after what had happened </p><p>the night previous, I should be more than ever preoccupied with </p><p>thoughts of her. From the first I had been struck with the air of </p><p>serene frankness and ingenuous directness, more like that of a noble </p><p>and innocent boy than any girl I had ever known, which characterized </p><p>her. I was curious to know how far this charming quality might be </p><p>peculiar to herself, and how far possibly a result of alterations in </p><p>the social position of women which might have taken place since my </p><p>time. Finding an opportunity that day, when alone with Dr. Leete, I </p><p>turned the conversation in that direction. </p><p>"I suppose," I said, "that women nowadays, having been relieved of the</p><p>burden of housework, have no employment but the cultivation of their </p><p>charms and graces." </p><p>"So far as we men are concerned," replied Dr. Leete, "we should </p><p>consider that they amply paid their way, to use one of your forms of </p><p>expression, if they confined themselves to that occupation, but you </p><p>may be very sure that they have quite too much spirit to consent to be </p><p>mere beneficiaries of society, even as a return for ornamenting it. </p><p>They did, indeed, welcome their riddance from housework, because that </p><p>was not only exceptionally wearing in itself, but also wasteful, in </p><p>the extreme, of energy, as compared with the co�perative plan; but </p><p>they accepted relief from that sort of work only that they might </p><p>contribute in other and more effectual, as well as more agreeable, </p><p>ways to the common weal. Our women, as well as our men, are members of </p><p>the industrial army, and leave it only when maternal duties claim </p><p>them. The result is that most women, at one time or another of their </p><p>lives, serve industrially some five or ten or fifteen years, while </p><p>those who have no children fill out the full term." </p><p>"A woman does not, then, necessarily leave the industrial service on </p><p>marriage?" I queried. </p><p>"No more than a man," replied the doctor. "Why on earth should she? </p><p>Married women have no housekeeping responsibilities now, you know, and </p><p>a husband is not a baby that he should be cared for." </p><p>"It was thought one of the most grievous features of our civilization </p><p>that we required so much toil from women," I said; "but it seems to me </p><p>you get more out of them than we did." </p><p>Dr. Leete laughed. "Indeed we do, just as we do out of our men. Yet </p><p>the women of this age are very happy, and those of the nineteenth </p><p>century, unless contemporary references greatly mislead us, were very </p><p>miserable. The reason that women nowadays are so much more efficient </p><p>co-laborers with the men, and at the same time are so happy, is that, </p><p>in regard to their work as well as men's, we follow the principle of </p><p>providing every one the kind of occupation he or she is best adapted </p><p>to. Women being inferior in strength to men, and further disqualified </p><p>industrially in special ways, the kinds of occupation reserved for </p><p>them, and the conditions under which they pursue them, have reference </p><p>to these facts. The heavier sorts of work are everywhere reserved for </p><p>men, the lighter occupations for women. Under no circumstances is a </p><p>woman permitted to follow any employment not perfectly adapted, both </p><p>as to kind and degree of labor, to her sex. Moreover, the hours of </p><p>women's work are considerably shorter than those of men's, more </p><p>frequent vacations are granted, and the most careful provision is made </p><p>for rest when needed. The men of this day so well appreciate that they </p><p>owe to the beauty and grace of women the chief zest of their lives and </p><p>their main incentive to effort, that they permit them to work at all </p><p>only because it is fully understood that a certain regular requirement </p><p>of labor, of a sort adapted to their powers, is well for body and </p><p>mind, during the period of maximum physical vigor. We believe that </p><p>the magnificent health which distinguishes our women from those of </p><p>your day, who seem to have been so generally sickly, is owing largely </p><p>to the fact that all alike are furnished with healthful and </p><p>inspiriting occupation." </p><p>"I understood you," I said, "that the women-workers belong to the army </p><p>of industry, but how can they be under the same system of ranking and</p><p>discipline with the men, when the conditions of their labor are so </p><p>different." </p><p>"They are under an entirely different discipline," replied Dr. Leete, </p><p>"and constitute rather an allied force than an integral part of the </p><p>army of the men. They have a woman general-in-chief and are under </p><p>exclusively feminine r�gime. This general, as also the higher </p><p>officers, is chosen by the body of women who have passed the time of </p><p>service, in correspondence with the manner in which the chiefs of the </p><p>masculine army and the President of the nation are elected. The </p><p>general of the women's army sits in the cabinet of the President and </p><p>has a veto on measures respecting women's work, pending appeals to </p><p>Congress. I should have said, in speaking of the judiciary, that we </p><p>have women on the bench, appointed by the general of the women, as </p><p>well as men. Causes in which both parties are women are determined by </p><p>women judges, and where a man and a woman are parties to a case, a </p><p>judge of either sex must consent to the verdict." </p><p>"Womanhood seems to be organized as a sort of _imperium in imperio_ in </p><p>your system," I said. </p><p>"To some extent," Dr. Leete replied; "but the inner _imperium_ is one </p><p>from which you will admit there is not likely to be much danger to the </p><p>nation. The lack of some such recognition of the distinct </p><p>individuality of the sexes was one of the innumerable defects of your </p><p>society. The passional attraction between men and women has too often </p><p>prevented a perception of the profound differences which make the </p><p>members of each sex in many things strange to the other, and capable </p><p>of sympathy only with their own. It is in giving full play to the </p><p>differences of sex rather than in seeking to obliterate them, as was </p><p>apparently the effort of some reformers in your day, that the </p><p>enjoyment of each by itself and the piquancy which each has for the </p><p>other, are alike enhanced. In your day there was no career for women </p><p>except in an unnatural rivalry with men. We have given them a world of </p><p>their own, with its emulations, ambitions, and careers, and I assure </p><p>you they are very happy in it. It seems to us that women were more </p><p>than any other class the victims of your civilization. There is </p><p>something which, even at this distance of time, penetrates one with </p><p>pathos in the spectacle of their ennuied, undeveloped lives, stunted </p><p>at marriage, their narrow horizon, bounded so often, physically, by </p><p>the four walls of home, and morally by a petty circle of personal </p><p>interests. I speak now, not of the poorer classes, who were generally </p><p>worked to death, but also of the well-to-do and rich. From the great </p><p>sorrows, as well as the petty frets of life, they had no refuge in the </p><p>breezy outdoor world of human affairs, nor any interests save those of </p><p>the family. Such an existence would have softened men's brains or </p><p>driven them mad. All that is changed to-day. No woman is heard </p><p>nowadays wishing she were a man, nor parents desiring boy rather than </p><p>girl children. Our girls are as full of ambition for their careers as </p><p>our boys. Marriage, when it comes, does not mean incarceration for </p><p>them, nor does it separate them in any way from the larger interests </p><p>of society, the bustling life of the world. Only when maternity fills </p><p>a woman's mind with new interests does she withdraw from the world for </p><p>a time. Afterwards, and at any time, she may return to her place among </p><p>her comrades, nor need she ever lose touch with them. Women are a very </p><p>happy race nowadays, as compared with what they ever were before in </p><p>the world's history, and their power of giving happiness to men has </p><p>been of course increased in proportion." </p><p>"I should imagine it possible," I said, "that the interest which girls </p><p>take in their careers as members of the industrial army and candidates </p><p>for its distinctions might have an effect to deter them from </p><p>marriage." </p><p>Dr. Leete smiled. "Have no anxiety on that score, Mr. West," he </p><p>replied. "The Creator took very good care that whatever other </p><p>modifications the dispositions of men and women might with time take </p><p>on, their attraction for each other should remain constant. The mere </p><p>fact that in an age like yours, when the struggle for existence must </p><p>have left people little time for other thoughts, and the future was so </p><p>uncertain that to assume parental responsibilities must have often </p><p>seemed like a criminal risk, there was even then marrying and giving </p><p>in marriage, should be conclusive on this point. As for love nowadays, </p><p>one of our authors says that the vacuum left in the minds of men and </p><p>women by the absence of care for one's livelihood has been entirely </p><p>taken up by the tender passion. That, however, I beg you to believe, </p><p>is something of an exaggeration. For the rest, so far is marriage from </p><p>being an interference with a woman's career, that the higher positions </p><p>in the feminine army of industry are intrusted only to women who have </p><p>been both wives and mothers, as they alone fully represent their sex." </p><p>"Are credit cards issued to the women just as to the men?" </p><p>"Certainly." </p><p>"The credits of the women, I suppose, are for smaller sums, owing to </p><p>the frequent suspension of their labor on account of family </p><p>responsibilities." </p><p>"Smaller!" exclaimed Dr. Leete, "oh, no! The maintenance of all our </p><p>people is the same. There are no exceptions to that rule, but if any </p><p>difference were made on account of the interruptions you speak of, it </p><p>would be by making the woman's credit larger, not smaller. Can you </p><p>think of any service constituting a stronger claim on the nation's </p><p>gratitude than bearing and nursing the nation's children? According to </p><p>our view, none deserve so well of the world as good parents. There is </p><p>no task so unselfish, so necessarily without return, though the heart </p><p>is well rewarded, as the nurture of the children who are to make the </p><p>world for one another when we are gone." </p><p>"It would seem to follow, from what you have said, that wives are in </p><p>no way dependent on their husbands for maintenance." </p><p>"Of course they are not," replied Dr. Leete, "nor children on their </p><p>parents either, that is, for means of support, though of course they </p><p>are for the offices of affection. The child's labor, when he grows up, </p><p>will go to increase the common stock, not his parents', who will be </p><p>dead, and therefore he is properly nurtured out of the common stock. </p><p>The account of every person, man, woman, and child, you must </p><p>understand, is always with the nation directly, and never through any </p><p>intermediary, except, of course, that parents, to a certain extent, </p><p>act for children as their guardians. You see that it is by virtue of </p><p>the relation of individuals to the nation, of their membership in it, </p><p>that they are entitled to support; and this title is in no way </p><p>connected with or affected by their relations to other individuals who </p><p>are fellow members of the nation with them. That any person should be </p><p>dependent for the means of support upon another would be shocking to </p><p>the moral sense as well as indefensible on any rational social theory.</p><p>What would become of personal liberty and dignity under such an </p><p>arrangement? I am aware that you called yourselves free in the </p><p>nineteenth century. The meaning of the word could not then, however, </p><p>have been at all what it is at present, or you certainly would not </p><p>have applied it to a society of which nearly every member was in a </p><p>position of galling personal dependence upon others as to the very </p><p>means of life, the poor upon the rich, or employed upon employer, </p><p>women upon men, children upon parents. Instead of distributing the </p><p>product of the nation directly to its members, which would seem the </p><p>most natural and obvious method, it would actually appear that you had </p><p>given your minds to devising a plan of hand to hand distribution, </p><p>involving the maximum of personal humiliation to all classes of </p><p>recipients. </p><p>"As regards the dependence of women upon men for support, which then </p><p>was usual, of course, natural attraction in case of marriages of love </p><p>must often have made it endurable, though for spirited women I should </p><p>fancy it must always have remained humiliating. What, then, must it </p><p>have been in the innumerable cases where women, with or without the </p><p>form of marriage, had to sell themselves to men to get their living? </p><p>Even your contemporaries, callous as they were to most of the </p><p>revolting aspects of their society, seem to have had an idea that this </p><p>was not quite as it should be; but, it was still only for pity's sake </p><p>that they deplored the lot of the women. It did not occur to them that </p><p>it was robbery as well as cruelty when men seized for themselves the </p><p>whole product of the world and left women to beg and wheedle for their </p><p>share. Why--but bless me, Mr. West, I am really running on at a </p><p>remarkable rate, just as if the robbery, the sorrow, and the shame </p><p>which those poor women endured were not over a century since, or as if </p><p>you were responsible for what you no doubt deplored as much as I do." </p><p>"I must bear my share of responsibility for the world as it then was," </p><p>I replied. "All I can say in extenuation is that until the nation was </p><p>ripe for the present system of organized production and distribution, </p><p>no radical improvement in the position of woman was possible. The root </p><p>of her disability, as you say, was her personal dependence upon man </p><p>for her livelihood, and I can imagine no other mode of social </p><p>organization than that you have adopted, which would have set woman </p><p>free of man at the same time that it set men free of one another. I </p><p>suppose, by the way, that so entire a change in the position of women </p><p>cannot have taken place without affecting in marked ways the social </p><p>relations of the sexes. That will be a very interesting study for me." </p><p>"The change you will observe," said Dr. Leete, "will chiefly be, I </p><p>think, the entire frankness and unconstraint which now characterizes </p><p>those relations, as compared with the artificiality which seems to </p><p>have marked them in your time. The sexes now meet with the ease of </p><p>perfect equals, suitors to each other for nothing but love. In your </p><p>time the fact that women were dependent for support on men made the </p><p>woman in reality the one chiefly benefited by marriage. This fact, so </p><p>far as we can judge from contemporary records, appears to have been </p><p>coarsely enough recognized among the lower classes, while among the </p><p>more polished it was glossed over by a system of elaborate </p><p>conventionalities which aimed to carry the precisely opposite meaning, </p><p>namely, that the man was the party chiefly benefited. To keep up this </p><p>convention it was essential that he should always seem the suitor. </p><p>Nothing was therefore considered more shocking to the proprieties than </p><p>that a woman should betray a fondness for a man before he had </p><p>indicated a desire to marry her. Why, we actually have in our</p><p>libraries books, by authors of your day, written for no other purpose </p><p>than to discuss the question whether, under any conceivable </p><p>circumstances, a woman might, without discredit to her sex, reveal an </p><p>unsolicited love. All this seems exquisitely absurd to us, and yet we </p><p>know that, given your circumstances, the problem might have a serious </p><p>side. When for a woman to proffer her love to a man was in effect to </p><p>invite him to assume the burden of her support, it is easy to see that </p><p>pride and delicacy might well have checked the promptings of the </p><p>heart. When you go out into our society, Mr. West, you must be </p><p>prepared to be often cross-questioned on this point by our young </p><p>people, who are naturally much interested in this aspect of </p><p>old-fashioned manners".[5] </p><p>"And so the girls of the twentieth century tell their love." </p><p>"If they choose," replied Dr. Leete. "There is no more pretense of a </p><p>concealment of feeling on their part than on the part of their lovers. </p><p>Coquetry would be as much despised in a girl as in a man. Affected </p><p>coldness, which in your day rarely deceived a lover, would deceive him </p><p>wholly now, for no one thinks of practicing it." </p><p>"One result which must follow from the independence of women I can see </p><p>for myself," I said. "There can be no marriages now except those of </p><p>inclination." </p><p>"That is a matter of course," replied Dr. Leete. </p><p>"Think of a world in which there are nothing but matches of pure love! </p><p>Ah me, Dr. Leete, how far you are from being able to understand what </p><p>an astonishing phenomenon such a world seems to a man of the </p><p>nineteenth century!" </p><p>"I can, however, to some extent, imagine it," replied the doctor. "But </p><p>the fact you celebrate, that there are nothing but love matches, means </p><p>even more, perhaps, than you probably at first realize. It means that </p><p>for the first time in human history the principle of sexual selection, </p><p>with its tendency to preserve and transmit the better types of the </p><p>race, and let the inferior types drop out, has unhindered operation. </p><p>The necessities of poverty, the need of having a home, no longer tempt </p><p>women to accept as the fathers of their children men whom they neither </p><p>can love nor respect. Wealth and rank no longer divert attention from </p><p>personal qualities. Gold no longer 'gilds the straitened forehead of </p><p>the fool.' The gifts of person, mind, and disposition; beauty, wit, </p><p>eloquence, kindness, generosity, geniality, courage, are sure of </p><p>transmission to posterity. Every generation is sifted through a little </p><p>finer mesh than the last. The attributes that human nature admires are </p><p>preserved, those that repel it are left behind. There are, of course, </p><p>a great many women who with love must mingle admiration, and seek to </p><p>wed greatly, but these not the less obey the same law, for to wed </p><p>greatly now is not to marry men of fortune or title, but those who </p><p>have risen above their fellows by the solidity or brilliance of their </p><p>services to humanity. These form nowadays the only aristocracy with </p><p>which alliance is distinction. </p><p>"You were speaking, a day or two ago, of the physical superiority of </p><p>our people to your contemporaries. Perhaps more important than any of </p><p>the causes I mentioned then as tending to race purification has been </p><p>the effect of untrammeled sexual selection upon the quality of two or </p><p>three successive generations. I believe that when you have made a</p><p>fuller study of our people you will find in them not only a physical, </p><p>but a mental and moral improvement. It would be strange if it were not </p><p>so, for not only is one of the great laws of nature now freely working </p><p>out the salvation of the race, but a profound moral sentiment has come </p><p>to its support. Individualism, which in your day was the animating </p><p>idea of society, not only was fatal to any vital sentiment of </p><p>brotherhood and common interest among living men, but equally to any </p><p>realization of the responsibility of the living for the generation to </p><p>follow. To-day this sense of responsibility, practically unrecognized </p><p>in all previous ages, has become one of the great ethical ideas of the </p><p>race, reinforcing, with an intense conviction of duty, the natural </p><p>impulse to seek in marriage the best and noblest of the other sex. The </p><p>result is, that not all the encouragements and incentives of every </p><p>sort which we have provided to develop industry, talent, genius, </p><p>excellence of whatever kind, are comparable in their effect on our </p><p>young men with the fact that our women sit aloft as judges of the </p><p>race and reserve themselves to reward the winners. Of all the whips, </p><p>and spurs, and baits, and prizes, there is none like the thought of </p><p>the radiant faces which the laggards will find averted. </p><p>"Celibates nowadays are almost invariably men who have failed to </p><p>acquit themselves creditably in the work of life. The woman must be a </p><p>courageous one, with a very evil sort of courage, too, whom pity for </p><p>one of these unfortunates should lead to defy the opinion of her </p><p>generation--for otherwise she is free--so far as to accept him for a </p><p>husband. I should add that, more exacting and difficult to resist than </p><p>any other element in that opinion, she would find the sentiment of her </p><p>own sex. Our women have risen to the full height of their </p><p>responsibility as the wardens of the world to come, to whose keeping </p><p>the keys of the future are confided. Their feeling of duty in this </p><p>respect amounts to a sense of religious consecration. It is a cult in </p><p>which they educate their daughters from childhood." </p><p>After going to my room that night, I sat up late to read a romance of </p><p>Berrian, handed me by Dr. Leete, the plot of which turned on a </p><p>situation suggested by his last words, concerning the modern view of </p><p>parental responsibility. A similar situation would almost certainly </p><p>have been treated by a nineteenth century romancist so as to excite </p><p>the morbid sympathy of the reader with the sentimental selfishness of </p><p>the lovers, and his resentment toward the unwritten law which they </p><p>outraged. I need not describe--for who has not read "Ruth Elton?"--how </p><p>different is the course which Berrian takes, and with what tremendous </p><p>effect he enforces the principle which he states: "Over the unborn our </p><p>power is that of God, and our responsibility like His toward us. As we </p><p>acquit ourselves toward them, so let Him deal with us." </p><p>[Footnote 5: I may say that Dr. Leete's warning has been fully </p><p>justified by my experience. The amount and intensity of amusement </p><p>which the young people of this day, and the young women especially, </p><p>are able to extract from what they are pleased to call the oddities of </p><p>courtship in the nineteenth century, appear unlimited.] </p><p>CHAPTER XXVI. </p><p>I think if a person were ever excusable for losing track of the days</p><p>of the week, the circumstances excused me. Indeed, if I had been told </p><p>that the method of reckoning time had been wholly changed and the days </p><p>were now counted in lots of five, ten, or fifteen instead of seven, I </p><p>should have been in no way surprised after what I had already heard </p><p>and seen of the twentieth century. The first time that any inquiry as </p><p>to the days of the week occurred to me was the morning following the </p><p>conversation related in the last chapter. At the breakfast table Dr. </p><p>Leete asked me if I would care to hear a sermon. </p><p>"Is it Sunday, then?" I exclaimed. </p><p>"Yes," he replied. "It was on Friday, you see, when we made the lucky </p><p>discovery of the buried chamber to which we owe your society this </p><p>morning. It was on Saturday morning, soon after midnight, that you </p><p>first awoke, and Sunday afternoon when you awoke the second time with </p><p>faculties fully regained." </p><p>"So you still have Sundays and sermons," I said. "We had prophets who </p><p>foretold that long before this time the world would have dispensed </p><p>with both. I am very curious to know how the ecclesiastical systems </p><p>fit in with the rest of your social arrangements. I suppose you have a </p><p>sort of national church with official clergymen." </p><p>Dr. Leete laughed, and Mrs. Leete and Edith seemed greatly amused. </p><p>"Why, Mr. West," Edith said, "what odd people you must think us. You </p><p>were quite done with national religious establishments in the </p><p>nineteenth century, and did you fancy we had gone back to them?" </p><p>"But how can voluntary churches and an unofficial clerical profession </p><p>be reconciled with national ownership of all buildings, and the </p><p>industrial service required of all men?" I answered. </p><p>"The religious practices of the people have naturally changed </p><p>considerably in a century," replied Dr. Leete; "but supposing them to </p><p>have remained unchanged, our social system would accommodate them </p><p>perfectly. The nation supplies any person or number of persons with </p><p>buildings on guarantee of the rent, and they remain tenants while they </p><p>pay it. As for the clergymen, if a number of persons wish the services </p><p>of an individual for any particular end of their own, apart from the </p><p>general service of the nation, they can always secure it, with that </p><p>individual's own consent, of course, just as we secure the service of </p><p>our editors, by contributing from their credit-cards an indemnity to </p><p>the nation for the loss of his services in general industry. This </p><p>indemnity paid the nation for the individual answers to the salary in </p><p>your day paid to the individual himself; and the various applications </p><p>of this principle leave private initiative full play in all details to </p><p>which national control is not applicable. Now, as to hearing a sermon </p><p>to-day, if you wish to do so, you can either go to a church to hear it </p><p>or stay at home." </p><p>"How am I to hear it if I stay at home?" </p><p>"Simply by accompanying us to the music room at the proper hour and </p><p>selecting an easy chair. There are some who still prefer to hear </p><p>sermons in church, but most of our preaching, like our musical </p><p>performances, is not in public, but delivered in acoustically prepared </p><p>chambers, connected by wire with subscribers' houses. If you prefer to </p><p>go to a church I shall be glad to accompany you, but I really don't</p><p>believe you are likely to hear anywhere a better discourse than you </p><p>will at home. I see by the paper that Mr. Barton is to preach this </p><p>morning, and he preaches only by telephone, and to audiences often </p><p>reaching 150,000." </p><p>"The novelty of the experience of hearing a sermon under such </p><p>circumstances would incline me to be one of Mr. Barton's hearers, if </p><p>for no other reason," I said. </p><p>An hour or two later, as I sat reading in the library, Edith came for </p><p>me, and I followed her to the music room, where Dr. and Mrs. Leete </p><p>were waiting. We had not more than seated ourselves comfortably when </p><p>the tinkle of a bell was heard, and a few moments after the voice of a </p><p>man, at the pitch of ordinary conversation, addressed us, with an </p><p>effect of proceeding from an invisible person in the room. This was </p><p>what the voice said:-- </p><p>MR. BARTON'S SERMON. </p><p>"We have had among us, during the past week, a critic from the </p><p>nineteenth century, a living representative of the epoch of our </p><p>great-grandparents. It would be strange if a fact so extraordinary had </p><p>not somewhat strongly affected our imaginations. Perhaps most of us </p><p>have been stimulated to some effort to realize the society of a </p><p>century ago, and figure to ourselves what it must have been like to </p><p>live then. In inviting you now to consider certain reflections upon </p><p>this subject which have occurred to me, I presume that I shall rather </p><p>follow than divert the course of your own thoughts." </p><p>Edith whispered something to her father at this point, to which he </p><p>nodded assent and turned to me. </p><p>"Mr. West," he said, "Edith suggests that you may find it slightly </p><p>embarrassing to listen to a discourse on the lines Mr. Barton is </p><p>laying down, and if so, you need not be cheated out of a sermon. She </p><p>will connect us with Mr. Sweetser's speaking room if you say so, and I </p><p>can still promise you a very good discourse." </p><p>"No, no," I said. "Believe me, I would much rather hear what Mr. </p><p>Barton has to say." </p><p>"As you please," replied my host. </p><p>When her father spoke to me Edith had touched a screw, and the voice </p><p>of Mr. Barton had ceased abruptly. Now at another touch the room was </p><p>once more filled with the earnest sympathetic tones which had already </p><p>impressed me most favorably. </p><p>* * * * *</p><p>"I venture to assume that one effect has been common with us as a </p><p>result of this effort at retrospection, and that it has been to leave </p><p>us more than ever amazed at the stupendous change which one brief </p><p>century has made in the material and moral conditions of humanity. </p><p>"Still, as regards the contrast between the poverty of the nation and </p><p>the world in the nineteenth century and their wealth now, it is not </p><p>greater, possibly, than had been before seen in human history, perhaps</p><p>not greater, for example, than that between the poverty of this </p><p>country during the earliest colonial period of the seventeenth century </p><p>and the relatively great wealth it had attained at the close of the </p><p>nineteenth, or between the England of William the Conqueror and that </p><p>of Victoria. Although the aggregate riches of a nation did not then, </p><p>as now, afford any accurate criterion of the masses of its people, yet </p><p>instances like these afford partial parallels for the merely material </p><p>side of the contrast between the nineteenth and the twentieth </p><p>centuries. It is when we contemplate the moral aspect of that contrast </p><p>that we find ourselves in the presence of a phenomenon for which </p><p>history offers no precedent, however far back we may cast our eye. One </p><p>might almost be excused who should exclaim, 'Here, surely, is </p><p>something like a miracle!' Nevertheless, when we give over idle </p><p>wonder, and begin to examine the seeming prodigy critically, we find </p><p>it no prodigy at all, much less a miracle. It is not necessary to </p><p>suppose a moral new birth of humanity, or a wholesale destruction of </p><p>the wicked and survival of the good, to account for the fact before </p><p>us. It finds its simple and obvious explanation in the reaction of a </p><p>changed environment upon human nature. It means merely that a form of </p><p>society which was founded on the pseudo self-interest of selfishness, </p><p>and appealed solely to the anti-social and brutal side of human </p><p>nature, has been replaced by institutions based on the true </p><p>self-interest of a rational unselfishness, and appealing to the social </p><p>and generous instincts of men. </p><p>"My friends, if you would see men again the beasts of prey they seemed </p><p>in the nineteenth century, all you have to do is to restore the old </p><p>social and industrial system, which taught them to view their natural </p><p>prey in their fellow-men, and find their gain in the loss of others. </p><p>No doubt it seems to you that no necessity, however dire, would have </p><p>tempted you to subsist on what superior skill or strength enabled you </p><p>to wrest from others equally needy. But suppose it were not merely </p><p>your own life that you were responsible for. I know well that there </p><p>must have been many a man among our ancestors who, if it had been </p><p>merely a question of his own life, would sooner have given it up than </p><p>nourished it by bread snatched from others. But this he was not </p><p>permitted to do. He had dear lives dependent on him. Men loved women </p><p>in those days, as now. God knows how they dared be fathers, but they </p><p>had babies as sweet, no doubt, to them as ours to us, whom they must </p><p>feed, clothe, educate. The gentlest creatures are fierce when they </p><p>have young to provide for, and in that wolfish society the struggle </p><p>for bread borrowed a peculiar desperation from the tenderest </p><p>sentiments. For the sake of those dependent on him, a man might not </p><p>choose, but must plunge into the foul fight,--cheat, overreach, </p><p>supplant, defraud, buy below worth and sell above, break down the </p><p>business by which his neighbor fed his young ones, tempt men to buy </p><p>what they ought not and to sell what they should not, grind his </p><p>laborers, sweat his debtors, cozen his creditors. Though a man sought </p><p>it carefully with tears, it was hard to find a way in which he could </p><p>earn a living and provide for his family except by pressing in before </p><p>some weaker rival and taking the food from his mouth. Even the </p><p>ministers of religion were not exempt from this cruel necessity. While </p><p>they warned their flocks against the love of money, regard for their </p><p>families compelled them to keep an outlook for the pecuniary prizes of </p><p>their calling. Poor fellows, theirs was indeed a trying business, </p><p>preaching to men a generosity and unselfishness which they and </p><p>everybody knew would, in the existing state of the world, reduce to </p><p>poverty those who should practice them, laying down laws of conduct </p><p>which the law of self-preservation compelled men to break. Looking on</p><p>the inhuman spectacle of society, these worthy men bitterly bemoaned </p><p>the depravity of human nature; as if angelic nature would not have </p><p>been debauched in such a devil's school! Ah, my friends, believe me, </p><p>it is not now in this happy age that humanity is proving the divinity </p><p>within it. It was rather in those evil days when not even the fight </p><p>for life with one another, the struggle for mere existence, in which </p><p>mercy was folly, could wholly banish generosity and kindness from the </p><p>earth. </p><p>"It is not hard to understand the desperation with which men and </p><p>women, who under other conditions would have been full of gentleness </p><p>and ruth, fought and tore each other in the scramble for gold, when we </p><p>realize what it meant to miss it, what poverty was in that day. For </p><p>the body it was hunger and thirst, torment by heat and frost, in </p><p>sickness neglect, in health unremitting toil; for the moral nature it </p><p>meant oppression, contempt, and the patient endurance of indignity, </p><p>brutish associations from infancy, the loss of all the innocence of </p><p>childhood, the grace of womanhood, the dignity of manhood; for the </p><p>mind it meant the death of ignorance, the torpor of all those </p><p>faculties which distinguish us from brutes, the reduction of life to a </p><p>round of bodily functions. </p><p>"Ah, my friends, if such a fate as this were offered you and your </p><p>children as the only alternative of success in the accumulation of </p><p>wealth, how long do you fancy would you be in sinking to the moral </p><p>level of your ancestors? </p><p>"Some two or three centuries ago an act of barbarity was committed in </p><p>India, which, though the number of lives destroyed was but a few </p><p>score, was attended by such peculiar horrors that its memory is likely </p><p>to be perpetual. A number of English prisoners were shut up in a room </p><p>containing not enough air to supply one-tenth their number. The </p><p>unfortunates were gallant men, devoted comrades in service, but, as </p><p>the agonies of suffocation began to take hold on them, they forgot all </p><p>else, and became involved in a hideous struggle, each one for himself, </p><p>and against all others, to force a way to one of the small apertures </p><p>of the prison at which alone it was possible to get a breath of air. </p><p>It was a struggle in which men became beasts, and the recital of its </p><p>horrors by the few survivors so shocked our forefathers that for a </p><p>century later we find it a stock reference in their literature as a </p><p>typical illustration of the extreme possibilities of human misery, as </p><p>shocking in its moral as its physical aspect. They could scarcely have </p><p>anticipated that to us the Black Hole of Calcutta, with its press of </p><p>maddened men tearing and trampling one another in the struggle to win </p><p>a place at the breathing holes, would seem a striking type of the </p><p>society of their age. It lacked something of being a complete type, </p><p>however, for in the Calcutta Black Hole there were no tender women, no </p><p>little children and old men and women, no cripples. They were at least </p><p>all men, strong to bear, who suffered. </p><p>"When we reflect that the ancient order of which I have been speaking </p><p>was prevalent up to the end of the nineteenth century, while to us the </p><p>new order which succeeded it already seems antique, even our parents </p><p>having known no other, we cannot fail to be astounded at the </p><p>suddenness with which a transition so profound beyond all previous </p><p>experience of the race must have been effected. Some observation of </p><p>the state of men's minds during the last quarter of the nineteenth </p><p>century will, however, in great measure, dissipate this astonishment. </p><p>Though general intelligence in the modern sense could not be said to</p><p>exist in any community at that time, yet, as compared with previous </p><p>generations, the one then on the stage was intelligent. The inevitable </p><p>consequence of even this comparative degree of intelligence had been a </p><p>perception of the evils of society, such as had never before been </p><p>general. It is quite true that these evils had been even worse, much </p><p>worse, in previous ages. It was the increased intelligence of the </p><p>masses which made the difference, as the dawn reveals the squalor of </p><p>surroundings which in the darkness may have seemed tolerable. The </p><p>keynote of the literature of the period was one of compassion for the </p><p>poor and unfortunate, and indignant outcry against the failure of the </p><p>social machinery to ameliorate the miseries of men. It is plain from </p><p>these outbursts that the moral hideousness of the spectacle about them </p><p>was, at least by flashes, fully realized by the best of the men of </p><p>that time, and that the lives of some of the more sensitive and </p><p>generous hearted of them were rendered wellnigh unendurable by the </p><p>intensity of their sympathies. </p><p>"Although the idea of the vital unity of the family of mankind, the </p><p>reality of human brotherhood, was very far from being apprehended by </p><p>them as the moral axiom it seems to us, yet it is a mistake to suppose </p><p>that there was no feeling at all corresponding to it. I could read you </p><p>passages of great beauty from some of their writers which show that </p><p>the conception was clearly attained by a few, and no doubt vaguely by </p><p>many more. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the nineteenth </p><p>century was in name Christian, and the fact that the entire commercial </p><p>and industrial frame of society was the embodiment of the </p><p>anti-Christian spirit must have had some weight, though I admit it was </p><p>strangely little, with the nominal followers of Jesus Christ. </p><p>"When we inquire why it did not have more, why, in general, long after </p><p>a vast majority of men had agreed as to the crying abuses of the </p><p>existing social arrangement, they still tolerated it, or contented </p><p>themselves with talking of petty reforms in it, we come upon an </p><p>extraordinary fact. It was the sincere belief of even the best of men </p><p>at that epoch that the only stable elements in human nature, on which </p><p>a social system could be safely founded, were its worst propensities. </p><p>They had been taught and believed that greed and self-seeking were all </p><p>that held mankind together, and that all human associations would fall </p><p>to pieces if anything were done to blunt the edge of these motives or </p><p>curb their operation. In a word, they believed--even those who longed </p><p>to believe otherwise--the exact reverse of what seems to us </p><p>self-evident; they believed, that is, that the anti-social qualities </p><p>of men, and not their social qualities, were what furnished the </p><p>cohesive force of society. It seemed reasonable to them that men lived </p><p>together solely for the purpose of overreaching and oppressing one </p><p>another, and of being overreached and oppressed, and that while a </p><p>society that gave full scope to these propensities could stand, there </p><p>would be little chance for one based on the idea of co�peration for </p><p>the benefit of all. It seems absurd to expect any one to believe that </p><p>convictions like these were ever seriously entertained by men; but </p><p>that they were not only entertained by our great-grandfathers, but </p><p>were responsible for the long delay in doing away with the ancient </p><p>order, after a conviction of its intolerable abuses had become </p><p>general, is as well established as any fact in history can be. Just </p><p>here you will find the explanation of the profound pessimism of the </p><p>literature of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the note of </p><p>melancholy in its poetry, and the cynicism of its humor. </p><p>"Feeling that the condition of the race was unendurable, they had no</p><p>clear hope of anything better. They believed that the evolution of </p><p>humanity had resulted in leading it into a _cul de sac_, and that </p><p>there was no way of getting forward. The frame of men's minds at this </p><p>time is strikingly illustrated by treatises which have come down to </p><p>us, and may even now be consulted in our libraries by the curious, in </p><p>which laborious arguments are pursued to prove that despite the evil </p><p>plight of men, life was still, by some slight preponderance of </p><p>considerations, probably better worth living than leaving. Despising </p><p>themselves, they despised their Creator. There was a general decay of </p><p>religious belief. Pale and watery gleams, from skies thickly veiled by </p><p>doubt and dread, alone lighted up the chaos of earth. That men should </p><p>doubt Him whose breath is in their nostrils, or dread the hands that </p><p>moulded them, seems to us indeed a pitiable insanity; but we must </p><p>remember that children who are brave by day have sometimes foolish </p><p>fears at night. The dawn has come since then. It is very easy to </p><p>believe in the fatherhood of God in the twentieth century. </p><p>"Briefly, as must needs be in a discourse of this character, I have </p><p>adverted to some of the causes which had prepared men's minds for the </p><p>change from the old to the new order, as well as some causes of the </p><p>conservatism of despair which for a while held it back after the time </p><p>was ripe. To wonder at the rapidity with which the change was </p><p>completed after its possibility was first entertained is to forget the </p><p>intoxicating effect of hope upon minds long accustomed to despair. The </p><p>sunburst, after so long and dark a night, must needs have had a </p><p>dazzling effect. From the moment men allowed themselves to believe </p><p>that humanity after all had not been meant for a dwarf, that its squat </p><p>stature was not the measure of its possible growth, but that it stood </p><p>upon the verge of an avatar of limitless development, the reaction </p><p>must needs have been overwhelming. It is evident that nothing was able </p><p>to stand against the enthusiasm which the new faith inspired. </p><p>"Here, at last, men must have felt, was a cause compared with which </p><p>the grandest of historic causes had been trivial. It was doubtless </p><p>because it could have commanded millions of martyrs, that none were </p><p>needed. The change of a dynasty in a petty kingdom of the old world </p><p>often cost more lives than did the revolution which set the feet of </p><p>the human race at last in the right way. </p><p>"Doubtless it ill beseems one to whom the boon of life in our </p><p>resplendent age has been vouchsafed to wish his destiny other, and yet </p><p>I have often thought that I would fain exchange my share in this </p><p>serene and golden day for a place in that stormy epoch of transition, </p><p>when heroes burst the barred gate of the future and revealed to the </p><p>kindling gaze of a hopeless race, in place of the blank wall that had </p><p>closed its path, a vista of progress whose end, for very excess of </p><p>light, still dazzles us. Ah, my friends! who will say that to have </p><p>lived then, when the weakest influence was a lever to whose touch the </p><p>centuries trembled, was not worth a share even in this era of </p><p>fruition? </p><p>"You know the story of that last, greatest, and most bloodless of </p><p>revolutions. In the time of one generation men laid aside the social </p><p>traditions and practices of barbarians, and assumed a social order </p><p>worthy of rational and human beings. Ceasing to be predatory in their </p><p>habits, they became co-workers, and found in fraternity, at once, the </p><p>science of wealth and happiness. 'What shall I eat and drink, and </p><p>wherewithal shall I be clothed?' stated as a problem beginning and </p><p>ending in self, had been an anxious and an endless one. But when once</p><p>it was conceived, not from the individual, but the fraternal </p><p>standpoint, 'What shall we eat and drink, and wherewithal shall we be </p><p>clothed?'--its difficulties vanished. </p><p>"Poverty with servitude had been the result, for the mass of humanity, </p><p>of attempting to solve the problem of maintenance from the individual </p><p>standpoint, but no sooner had the nation become the sole capitalist </p><p>and employer than not alone did plenty replace poverty, but the last </p><p>vestige of the serfdom of man to man disappeared from earth. Human </p><p>slavery, so often vainly scotched, at last was killed. The means of </p><p>subsistence no longer doled out by men to women, by employer to </p><p>employed, by rich to poor, was distributed from a common stock as </p><p>among children at the father's table. It was impossible for a man any </p><p>longer to use his fellow-men as tools for his own profit. His esteem </p><p>was the only sort of gain he could thenceforth make out of him. There </p><p>was no more either arrogance or servility in the relations of human </p><p>beings to one another. For the first time since the creation every man </p><p>stood up straight before God. The fear of want and the lust of gain </p><p>became extinct motives when abundance was assured to all and </p><p>immoderate possessions made impossible of attainment. There were no </p><p>more beggars nor almoners. Equity left charity without an occupation. </p><p>The ten commandments became wellnigh obsolete in a world where there </p><p>was no temptation to theft, no occasion to lie either for fear or </p><p>favor, no room for envy where all were equal, and little provocation </p><p>to violence where men were disarmed of power to injure one another. </p><p>Humanity's ancient dream of liberty, equality, fraternity, mocked by </p><p>so many ages, at last was realized. </p><p>"As in the old society the generous, the just, the tender-hearted had </p><p>been placed at a disadvantage by the possession of those qualities, so </p><p>in the new society the cold-hearted, the greedy, and self-seeking </p><p>found themselves out of joint with the world. Now that the conditions </p><p>of life for the first time ceased to operate as a forcing process to </p><p>develop the brutal qualities of human nature, and the premium which </p><p>had heretofore encouraged selfishness was not only removed, but placed </p><p>upon unselfishness, it was for the first time possible to see what </p><p>unperverted human nature really was like. The depraved tendencies, </p><p>which had previously overgrown and obscured the better to so large an </p><p>extent, now withered like cellar fungi in the open air, and the nobler </p><p>qualities showed a sudden luxuriance which turned cynics into </p><p>panegyrists and for the first time in human history tempted mankind to </p><p>fall in love with itself. Soon was fully revealed, what the divines </p><p>and philosophers of the old world never would have believed, that </p><p>human nature in its essential qualities is good, not bad, that men by </p><p>their natural intention and structure are generous, not selfish, </p><p>pitiful, not cruel, sympathetic, not arrogant, godlike in aspirations, </p><p>instinct with divinest impulses of tenderness and self-sacrifice, </p><p>images of God indeed, not the travesties upon Him they had seemed. The </p><p>constant pressure, through numberless generations, of conditions of </p><p>life which might have perverted angels, had not been able to </p><p>essentially alter the natural nobility of the stock, and these </p><p>conditions once removed, like a bent tree, it had sprung back to its </p><p>normal uprightness. </p><p>"To put the whole matter in the nutshell of a parable, let me compare </p><p>humanity in the olden time to a rosebush planted in a swamp, watered </p><p>with black bog-water, breathing miasmatic fogs by day, and chilled </p><p>with poison dews at night. Innumerable generations of gardeners had </p><p>done their best to make it bloom, but beyond an occasional half-opened</p><p>bud with a worm at the heart, their efforts had been unsuccessful. </p><p>Many, indeed, claimed that the bush was no rosebush at all, but a </p><p>noxious shrub, fit only to be uprooted and burned. The gardeners, for </p><p>the most part, however, held that the bush belonged to the rose </p><p>family, but had some ineradicable taint about it, which prevented the </p><p>buds from coming out, and accounted for its generally sickly </p><p>condition. There were a few, indeed, who maintained that the stock was </p><p>good enough, that the trouble was in the bog, and that under more </p><p>favorable conditions the plant might be expected to do better. But </p><p>these persons were not regular gardeners, and being condemned by the </p><p>latter as mere theorists and day dreamers, were for the most part, so </p><p>regarded by the people. Moreover, urged some eminent moral </p><p>philosophers, even conceding for the sake of the argument that the </p><p>bush might possibly do better elsewhere, it was a more valuable </p><p>discipline for the buds to try to bloom in a bog than it would be </p><p>under more favorable conditions. The buds that succeeded in opening </p><p>might indeed be very rare, and the flowers pale and scentless, but </p><p>they represented far more moral effort than if they had bloomed </p><p>spontaneously in a garden. </p><p>"The regular gardeners and the moral philosophers had their way. The </p><p>bush remained rooted in the bog, and the old course of treatment went </p><p>on. Continually new varieties of forcing mixtures were applied to the </p><p>roots, and more recipes than could be numbered, each declared by its </p><p>advocates the best and only suitable preparation, were used to kill </p><p>the vermin and remove the mildew. This went on a very long time. </p><p>Occasionally some one claimed to observe a slight improvement in the </p><p>appearance of the bush, but there were quite as many who declared that </p><p>it did not look so well as it used to. On the whole there could not be </p><p>said to be any marked change. Finally, during a period of general </p><p>despondency as to the prospects of the bush where it was, the idea of </p><p>transplanting it was again mooted, and this time found favor. 'Let us </p><p>try it,' was the general voice. 'Perhaps it may thrive better </p><p>elsewhere, and here it is certainly doubtful if it be worth </p><p>cultivating longer.' So it came about that the rosebush of humanity </p><p>was transplanted, and set in sweet, warm, dry earth, where the sun </p><p>bathed it, the stars wooed it, and the south wind caressed it. Then it </p><p>appeared that it was indeed a rosebush. The vermin and the mildew </p><p>disappeared, and the bush was covered with most beautiful red roses, </p><p>whose fragrance filled the world. </p><p>"It is a pledge of the destiny appointed for us that the Creator has </p><p>set in our hearts an infinite standard of achievement, judged by which </p><p>our past attainments seem always insignificant, and the goal never </p><p>nearer. Had our forefathers conceived a state of society in which men </p><p>should live together like brethren dwelling in unity, without strifes </p><p>or envying, violence or overreaching, and where, at the price of a </p><p>degree of labor not greater than health demands, in their chosen </p><p>occupations, they should be wholly freed from care for the morrow and </p><p>left with no more concern for their livelihood than trees which are </p><p>watered by unfailing streams,--had they conceived such a condition, I </p><p>say, it would have seemed to them nothing less than paradise. They </p><p>would have confounded it with their idea of heaven, nor dreamed that </p><p>there could possibly lie further beyond anything to be desired or </p><p>striven for. </p><p>"But how is it with us who stand on this height which they gazed up </p><p>to? Already we have wellnigh forgotten, except when it is especially </p><p>called to our minds by some occasion like the present, that it was</p><p>not always with men as it is now. It is a strain on our imaginations </p><p>to conceive the social arrangements of our immediate ancestors. We </p><p>find them grotesque. The solution of the problem of physical </p><p>maintenance so as to banish care and crime, so far from seeming to us </p><p>an ultimate attainment, appears but as a preliminary to anything like </p><p>real human progress. We have but relieved ourselves of an impertinent </p><p>and needless harassment which hindered our ancestors from undertaking </p><p>the real ends of existence. We are merely stripped for the race; no </p><p>more. We are like a child which has just learned to stand upright and </p><p>to walk. It is a great event, from the child's point of view, when he </p><p>first walks. Perhaps he fancies that there can be little beyond that </p><p>achievement, but a year later he has forgotten that he could not </p><p>always walk. His horizon did but widen when he rose, and enlarge as he </p><p>moved. A great event indeed, in one sense, was his first step, but </p><p>only as a beginning, not as the end. His true career was but then </p><p>first entered on. The enfranchisement of humanity in the last century, </p><p>from mental and physical absorption in working and scheming for the </p><p>mere bodily necessities, may be regarded as a species of second birth </p><p>of the race, without which its first birth to an existence that was </p><p>but a burden would forever have remained unjustified, but whereby it </p><p>is now abundantly vindicated. Since then, humanity has entered on a </p><p>new phase of spiritual development, an evolution of higher faculties, </p><p>the very existence of which in human nature our ancestors scarcely </p><p>suspected. In place of the dreary hopelessness of the nineteenth </p><p>century, its profound pessimism as to the future of humanity, the </p><p>animating idea of the present age is an enthusiastic conception of the </p><p>opportunities of our earthly existence, and the unbounded </p><p>possibilities of human nature. The betterment of mankind from </p><p>generation to generation, physically, mentally, morally, is recognized </p><p>as the one great object supremely worthy of effort and of sacrifice. </p><p>We believe the race for the first time to have entered on the </p><p>realization of God's ideal of it, and each generation must now be a </p><p>step upward. </p><p>"Do you ask what we look for when unnumbered generations shall have </p><p>passed away? I answer, the way stretches far before us, but the end is </p><p>lost in light. For twofold is the return of man to God 'who is our </p><p>home,' the return of the individual by the way of death, and the </p><p>return of the race by the fulfilment of the evolution, when the divine </p><p>secret hidden in the germ shall be perfectly unfolded. With a tear for </p><p>the dark past, turn we then to the dazzling future, and, veiling our </p><p>eyes, press forward. The long and weary winter of the race is ended. </p><p>Its summer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens </p><p>are before it." </p><p>CHAPTER XXVII. </p><p>I never could tell just why, but Sunday afternoon during my old life </p><p>had been a time when I was peculiarly subject to melancholy, when the </p><p>color unaccountably faded out of all the aspects of life, and </p><p>everything appeared pathetically uninteresting. The hours, which in </p><p>general were wont to bear me easily on their wings, lost the power of </p><p>flight, and toward the close of the day, drooping quite to earth, had </p><p>fairly to be dragged along by main strength. Perhaps it was partly </p><p>owing to the established association of ideas that, despite the utter</p><p>change in my circumstances, I fell into a state of profound depression </p><p>on the afternoon of this my first Sunday in the twentieth century. </p><p>It was not, however, on the present occasion a depression without </p><p>specific cause, the mere vague melancholy I have spoken of, but a </p><p>sentiment suggested and certainly quite justified by my position. The </p><p>sermon of Mr. Barton, with its constant implication of the vast moral </p><p>gap between the century to which I belonged and that in which I found </p><p>myself, had had an effect strongly to accentuate my sense of </p><p>loneliness in it. Considerately and philosophically as he had spoken, </p><p>his words could scarcely have failed to leave upon my mind a strong </p><p>impression of the mingled pity, curiosity, and aversion which I, as a </p><p>representative of an abhorred epoch, must excite in all around me. </p><p>The extraordinary kindness with which I had been treated by Dr. Leete </p><p>and his family, and especially the goodness of Edith, had hitherto </p><p>prevented my fully realizing that their real sentiment toward me must </p><p>necessarily be that of the whole generation to which they belonged. </p><p>The recognition of this, as regarded Dr. Leete and his amiable wife, </p><p>however painful, I might have endured, but the conviction that Edith </p><p>must share their feeling was more than I could bear. </p><p>The crushing effect with which this belated perception of a fact so </p><p>obvious came to me opened my eyes fully to something which perhaps the </p><p>reader has already suspected,--I loved Edith. </p><p>Was it strange that I did? The affecting occasion on which our </p><p>intimacy had begun, when her hands had drawn me out of the whirlpool </p><p>of madness; the fact that her sympathy was the vital breath which had </p><p>set me up in this new life and enabled me to support it; my habit of </p><p>looking to her as the mediator between me and the world around in a </p><p>sense that even her father was not,--these were circumstances that had </p><p>predetermined a result which her remarkable loveliness of person and </p><p>disposition would alone have accounted for. It was quite inevitable </p><p>that she should have come to seem to me, in a sense quite different </p><p>from the usual experience of lovers, the only woman in this world. Now </p><p>that I had become suddenly sensible of the fatuity of the hopes I had </p><p>begun to cherish, I suffered not merely what another lover might, but </p><p>in addition a desolate loneliness, an utter forlornness, such as no </p><p>other lover, however unhappy, could have felt. </p><p>My hosts evidently saw that I was depressed in spirits, and did their </p><p>best to divert me. Edith especially, I could see, was distressed for </p><p>me, but according to the usual perversity of lovers, having once been </p><p>so mad as to dream of receiving something more from her, there was no </p><p>longer any virtue for me in a kindness that I knew was only sympathy. </p><p>Toward nightfall, after secluding myself in my room most of the </p><p>afternoon, I went into the garden to walk about. The day was overcast, </p><p>with an autumnal flavor in the warm, still air. Finding myself near </p><p>the excavation, I entered the subterranean chamber and sat down there. </p><p>"This," I muttered to myself, "is the only home I have. Let me stay </p><p>here, and not go forth any more." Seeking aid from the familiar </p><p>surroundings, I endeavored to find a sad sort of consolation in </p><p>reviving the past and summoning up the forms and faces that were about </p><p>me in my former life. It was in vain. There was no longer any life in </p><p>them. For nearly one hundred years the stars had been looking down on </p><p>Edith Bartlett's grave, and the graves of all my generation. </p><p>The past was dead, crushed beneath a century's weight, and from the </p><p>present I was shut out. There was no place for me anywhere. I was </p><p>neither dead nor properly alive. </p><p>"Forgive me for following you." </p><p>I looked up. Edith stood in the door of the subterranean room, </p><p>regarding me smilingly, but with eyes full of sympathetic distress. </p><p>"Send me away if I am intruding on you," she said; "but we saw that </p><p>you were out of spirits, and you know you promised to let me know if </p><p>that were so. You have not kept your word." </p><p>I rose and came to the door, trying to smile, but making, I fancy, </p><p>rather sorry work of it, for the sight of her loveliness brought home </p><p>to me the more poignantly the cause of my wretchedness. </p><p>"I was feeling a little lonely, that is all," I said. "Has it never </p><p>occurred to you that my position is so much more utterly alone than </p><p>any human being's ever was before that a new word is really needed to </p><p>describe it?" </p><p>"Oh, you must not talk that way,--you must not let yourself feel that </p><p>way,--you must not!" she exclaimed, with moistened eyes. "Are we not </p><p>your friends? It is your own fault if you will not let us be. You need </p><p>not be lonely." </p><p>"You are good to me beyond my power of understanding," I said, "but </p><p>don't you suppose that I know it is pity merely, sweet pity, but pity </p><p>only. I should be a fool not to know that I cannot seem to you as </p><p>other men of your own generation do, but as some strange uncanny </p><p>being, a stranded creature of an unknown sea, whose forlornness </p><p>touches your compassion despite its grotesqueness. I have been so </p><p>foolish, you were so kind, as to almost forget that this must needs be </p><p>so, and to fancy I might in time become naturalized, as we used to </p><p>say, in this age, so as to feel like one of you and to seem to you </p><p>like the other men about you. But Mr. Barton's sermon taught me how </p><p>vain such a fancy is, how great the gulf between us must seem to you." </p><p>"Oh that miserable sermon!" she exclaimed, fairly crying now in her </p><p>sympathy, "I wanted you not to hear it. What does he know of you? He </p><p>has read in old musty books about your times, that is all. What do you </p><p>care about him, to let yourself be vexed by anything he said? Isn't it </p><p>anything to you, that we who know you feel differently? Don't you care </p><p>more about what we think of you than what he does who never saw you? </p><p>Oh, Mr. West! you don't know, you can't think, how it makes me feel to </p><p>see you so forlorn. I can't have it so. What can I say to you? How can </p><p>I convince you how different our feeling for you is from what you </p><p>think?" </p><p>As before, in that other crisis of my fate when she had come to me, </p><p>she extended her hands towards me in a gesture of helpfulness, and, as </p><p>then, I caught and held them in my own; her bosom heaved with strong </p><p>emotion, and little tremors in the fingers which I clasped emphasized </p><p>the depth of her feeling. In her face, pity contended in a sort of </p><p>divine spite against the obstacles which reduced it to impotence. </p><p>Womanly compassion surely never wore a guise more lovely. </p><p>Such beauty and such goodness quite melted me, and it seemed that the</p><p>only fitting response I could make was to tell her just the truth. Of </p><p>course I had not a spark of hope, but on the other hand I had no fear </p><p>that she would be angry. She was too pitiful for that. So I said </p><p>presently, "It is very ungrateful in me not to be satisfied with such </p><p>kindness as you have shown me, and are showing me now. But are you so </p><p>blind as not to see why they are not enough to make me happy? Don't </p><p>you see that it is because I have been mad enough to love you?" </p><p>At my last words she blushed deeply and her eyes fell before mine, but </p><p>she made no effort to withdraw her hands from my clasp. For some </p><p>moments she stood so, panting a little. Then blushing deeper than </p><p>ever, but with a dazzling smile, she looked up. </p><p>"Are you sure it is not you who are blind?" she said. </p><p>That was all, but it was enough, for it told me that, unaccountable, </p><p>incredible as it was, this radiant daughter of a golden age had </p><p>bestowed upon me not alone her pity, but her love. Still, I half </p><p>believed I must be under some blissful hallucination even as I clasped </p><p>her in my arms. "If I am beside myself," I cried, "let me remain so." </p><p>"It is I whom you must think beside myself," she panted, escaping from </p><p>my arms when I had barely tasted the sweetness of her lips. "Oh! oh! </p><p>what must you think of me almost to throw myself in the arms of one I </p><p>have known but a week? I did not mean that you should find it out so </p><p>soon, but I was so sorry for you I forgot what I was saying. No, no; </p><p>you must not touch me again till you know who I am. After that, sir, </p><p>you shall apologize to me very humbly for thinking, as I know you do, </p><p>that I have been over quick to fall in love with you. After you know </p><p>who I am, you will be bound to confess that it was nothing less than </p><p>my duty to fall in love with you at first sight, and that no girl of </p><p>proper feeling in my place could do otherwise." </p><p>As may be supposed, I would have been quite content to waive </p><p>explanations, but Edith was resolute that there should be no more </p><p>kisses until she had been vindicated from all suspicion of </p><p>precipitancy in the bestowal of her affections, and I was fain to </p><p>follow the lovely enigma into the house. Having come where her mother </p><p>was, she blushingly whispered something in her ear and ran away, </p><p>leaving us together. It then appeared that, strange as my experience </p><p>had been, I was now first to know what was perhaps its strangest </p><p>feature. From Mrs. Leete I learned that Edith was the great-granddaughter </p><p>of no other than my lost love, Edith Bartlett. After mourning me for </p><p>fourteen years, she had made a marriage of esteem, and left a son who </p><p>had been Mrs. Leete's father. Mrs. Leete had never seen her </p><p>grandmother, but had heard much of her, and, when her daughter was </p><p>born, gave her the name of Edith. This fact might have tended to </p><p>increase the interest which the girl took, as she grew up, in all that </p><p>concerned her ancestress, and especially the tragic story of the </p><p>supposed death of the lover, whose wife she expected to be, in the </p><p>conflagration of his house. It was a tale well calculated to touch the </p><p>sympathy of a romantic girl, and the fact that the blood of the </p><p>unfortunate heroine was in her own veins naturally heightened Edith's </p><p>interest in it. A portrait of Edith Bartlett and some of her papers, </p><p>including a packet of my own letters, were among the family heirlooms. </p><p>The picture represented a very beautiful young woman about whom it was </p><p>easy to imagine all manner of tender and romantic things. My letters </p><p>gave Edith some material for forming a distinct idea of my </p><p>personality, and both together sufficed to make the sad old story very</p><p>real to her. She used to tell her parents, half jestingly, that she </p><p>would never marry till she found a lover like Julian West, and there </p><p>were none such nowadays. </p><p>Now all this, of course, was merely the daydreaming of a girl whose </p><p>mind had never been taken up by a love affair of her own, and would </p><p>have had no serious consequence but for the discovery that morning of </p><p>the buried vault in her father's garden and the revelation of the </p><p>identity of its inmate. For when the apparently lifeless form had been </p><p>borne into the house, the face in the locket found upon the breast was </p><p>instantly recognized as that of Edith Bartlett, and by that fact, </p><p>taken in connection with the other circumstances, they knew that I was </p><p>no other than Julian West. Even had there been no thought, as at first </p><p>there was not, of my resuscitation, Mrs. Leete said she believed that </p><p>this event would have affected her daughter in a critical and </p><p>life-long manner. The presumption of some subtle ordering of destiny, </p><p>involving her fate with mine, would under all circumstances have </p><p>possessed an irresistible fascination for almost any woman. </p><p>Whether when I came back to life a few hours afterward, and from the </p><p>first seemed to turn to her with a peculiar dependence and to find a </p><p>special solace in her company, she had been too quick in giving her </p><p>love at the first sign of mine, I could now, her mother said, judge </p><p>for myself. If I thought so, I must remember that this, after all, was </p><p>the twentieth and not the nineteenth century, and love was, no doubt, </p><p>now quicker in growth, as well as franker in utterance than then. </p><p>From Mrs. Leete I went to Edith. When I found her, it was first of all </p><p>to take her by both hands and stand a long time in rapt contemplation </p><p>of her face. As I gazed, the memory of that other Edith, which had </p><p>been affected as with a benumbing shock by the tremendous experience </p><p>that had parted us, revived, and my heart was dissolved with tender </p><p>and pitiful emotions, but also very blissful ones. For she who brought </p><p>to me so poignantly the sense of my loss was to make that loss good. </p><p>It was as if from her eyes Edith Bartlett looked into mine, and smiled </p><p>consolation to me. My fate was not alone the strangest, but the most </p><p>fortunate that ever befell a man. A double miracle had been wrought </p><p>for me. I had not been stranded upon the shore of this strange world </p><p>to find myself alone and companionless. My love, whom I had dreamed </p><p>lost, had been re�mbodied for my consolation. When at last, in an </p><p>ecstasy of gratitude and tenderness, I folded the lovely girl in my </p><p>arms, the two Ediths were blended in my thought, nor have they ever </p><p>since been clearly distinguished. I was not long in finding that on </p><p>Edith's part there was a corresponding confusion of identities. Never, </p><p>surely, was there between freshly united lovers a stranger talk than </p><p>ours that afternoon. She seemed more anxious to have me speak of Edith </p><p>Bartlett than of herself, of how I had loved her than how I loved </p><p>herself, rewarding my fond words concerning another woman with tears </p><p>and tender smiles and pressures of the hand. </p><p>"You must not love me too much for myself," she said. "I shall be very </p><p>jealous for her. I shall not let you forget her. I am going to tell </p><p>you something which you may think strange. Do you not believe that </p><p>spirits sometimes come back to the world to fulfill some work that lay </p><p>near their hearts? What if I were to tell you that I have sometimes </p><p>thought that her spirit lives in me,--that Edith Bartlett, not Edith </p><p>Leete, is my real name. I cannot know it; of course none of us can </p><p>know who we really are; but I can feel it. Can you wonder that I have </p><p>such a feeling, seeing how my life was affected by her and by you,</p><p>even before you came. So you see you need not trouble to love me at </p><p>all, if only you are true to her. I shall not be likely to be </p><p>jealous." </p><p>Dr. Leete had gone out that afternoon, and I did not have an interview </p><p>with him till later. He was not, apparently, wholly unprepared for the </p><p>intelligence I conveyed, and shook my hand heartily. </p><p>"Under any ordinary circumstances, Mr. West, I should say that this </p><p>step had been taken on rather short acquaintance; but these are </p><p>decidedly not ordinary circumstances. In fairness, perhaps I ought to </p><p>tell you," he added, smilingly, "that while I cheerfully consent to </p><p>the proposed arrangement, you must not feel too much indebted to me, </p><p>as I judge my consent is a mere formality. From the moment the secret </p><p>of the locket was out, it had to be, I fancy. Why, bless me, if Edith </p><p>had not been there to redeem her great-grandmother's pledge, I really </p><p>apprehend that Mrs. Leete's loyalty to me would have suffered a severe </p><p>strain." </p><p>That evening the garden was bathed in moonlight, and till midnight </p><p>Edith and I wandered to and fro there, trying to grow accustomed to </p><p>our happiness. </p><p>"What should I have done if you had not cared for me?" she exclaimed. </p><p>"I was afraid you were not going to. What should I have done then, </p><p>when I felt I was consecrated to you! As soon as you came back to </p><p>life, I was as sure as if she had told me that I was to be to you what </p><p>she could not be, but that could only be if you would let me. Oh, how </p><p>I wanted to tell you that morning, when you felt so terribly strange </p><p>among us, who I was, but dared not open my lips about that, or let </p><p>father or mother"-- </p><p>"That must have been what you would not let your father tell me!" I </p><p>exclaimed, referring to the conversation I had overheard as I came out </p><p>of my trance. </p><p>"Of course it was," Edith laughed. "Did you only just guess that? </p><p>Father being only a man, thought that it would make you feel among </p><p>friends to tell you who we were. He did not think of me at all. But </p><p>mother knew what I meant, and so I had my way. I could never have </p><p>looked you in the face if you had known who I was. It would have been </p><p>forcing myself on you quite too boldly. I am afraid you think I did </p><p>that to-day, as it was. I am sure I did not mean to, for I know girls </p><p>were expected to hide their feelings in your day, and I was dreadfully </p><p>afraid of shocking you. Ah me, how hard it must have been for them to </p><p>have always had to conceal their love like a fault. Why did they think </p><p>it such a shame to love any one till they had been given permission? </p><p>It is so odd to think of waiting for permission to fall in love. Was </p><p>it because men in those days were angry when girls loved them? That is </p><p>not the way women would feel, I am sure, or men either, I think, now. </p><p>I don't understand it at all. That will be one of the curious things </p><p>about the women of those days that you will have to explain to me. I </p><p>don't believe Edith Bartlett was so foolish as the others." </p><p>After sundry ineffectual attempts at parting, she finally insisted </p><p>that we must say good night. I was about to imprint upon her lips the </p><p>positively last kiss, when she said, with an indescribable archness:-- </p><p>"One thing troubles me. Are you sure that you quite forgive Edith</p><p>Bartlett for marrying any one else? The books that have come down to </p><p>us make out lovers of your time more jealous than fond, and that is </p><p>what makes me ask. It would be a great relief to me if I could feel </p><p>sure that you were not in the least jealous of my great-grandfather </p><p>for marrying your sweetheart. May I tell my great-grandmother's </p><p>picture when I go to my room that you quite forgive her for proving </p><p>false to you?" </p><p>Will the reader believe it, this coquettish quip, whether the speaker </p><p>herself had any idea of it or not, actually touched and with the </p><p>touching cured a preposterous ache of something like jealousy which I </p><p>had been vaguely conscious of ever since Mrs. Leete had told me of </p><p>Edith Bartlett's marriage. Even while I had been holding Edith </p><p>Bartlett's great-granddaughter in my arms, I had not, till this </p><p>moment, so illogical are some of our feelings, distinctly realized </p><p>that but for that marriage I could not have done so. The absurdity of </p><p>this frame of mind could only be equalled by the abruptness with which </p><p>it dissolved as Edith's roguish query cleared the fog from my </p><p>perceptions. I laughed as I kissed her. </p><p>"You may assure her of my entire forgiveness," I said, "although if it </p><p>had been any man but your great-grandfather whom she married, it would </p><p>have been a very different matter." </p><p>On reaching my chamber that night I did not open the musical telephone </p><p>that I might be lulled to sleep with soothing tunes, as had become my </p><p>habit. For once my thoughts made better music than even twentieth </p><p>century orchestras discourse, and it held me enchanted till well </p><p>toward morning, when I fell asleep. </p><p>CHAPTER XXVIII. </p><p>"It's a little after the time you told me to wake you, sir. You did </p><p>not come out of it as quick as common, sir." </p><p>The voice was the voice of my man Sawyer. I started bolt upright in </p><p>bed and stared around. I was in my underground chamber. The mellow </p><p>light of the lamp which always burned in the room when I occupied it </p><p>illumined the familiar walls and furnishings. By my bedside, with the </p><p>glass of sherry in his hand which Dr. Pillsbury prescribed on first </p><p>rousing from a mesmeric sleep, by way of awakening the torpid physical </p><p>functions, stood Sawyer. </p><p>"Better take this right off, sir," he said, as I stared blankly at </p><p>him. "You look kind of flushed like, sir, and you need it." </p><p>I tossed off the liquor and began to realize what had happened to me. </p><p>It was, of course, very plain. All that about the twentieth century </p><p>had been a dream. I had but dreamed of that enlightened and care-free </p><p>race of men and their ingeniously simple institutions, of the glorious </p><p>new Boston with its domes and pinnacles, its gardens and fountains, </p><p>and its universal reign of comfort. The amiable family which I had </p><p>learned to know so well, my genial host and Mentor, Dr. Leete, his </p><p>wife, and their daughter, the second and more beauteous Edith, my </p><p>betrothed,--these, too, had been but figments of a vision.</p><p>For a considerable time I remained in the attitude in which this </p><p>conviction had come over me, sitting up in bed gazing at vacancy, </p><p>absorbed in recalling the scenes and incidents of my fantastic </p><p>experience. Sawyer, alarmed at my looks, was meanwhile anxiously </p><p>inquiring what was the matter with me. Roused at length by his </p><p>importunities to a recognition of my surroundings, I pulled myself </p><p>together with an effort and assured the faithful fellow that I was all </p><p>right. "I have had an extraordinary dream, that's all, Sawyer," I </p><p>said, "a most-ex-traor-dinary-dream." </p><p>I dressed in a mechanical way, feeling lightheaded and oddly uncertain </p><p>of myself, and sat down to the coffee and rolls which Sawyer was in </p><p>the habit of providing for my refreshment before I left the house. The </p><p>morning newspaper lay by the plate. I took it up, and my eye fell on </p><p>the date, May 31, 1887. I had known, of course, from the moment I </p><p>opened my eyes that my long and detailed experience in another century </p><p>had been a dream, and yet it was startling to have it so conclusively </p><p>demonstrated that the world was but a few hours older than when I had </p><p>lain down to sleep. </p><p>Glancing at the table of contents at the head of the paper, which </p><p>reviewed the news of the morning, I read the following summary:-- </p><p>* * * * *</p><p>"FOREIGN AFFAIRS.--The impending war between France and Germany. </p><p>The French Chambers asked for new military credits to meet Germany's </p><p>increase of her army. Probability that all Europe will be involved in </p><p>case of war.--Great suffering among the unemployed in London. They </p><p>demand work. Monster demonstration to be made. The authorities </p><p>uneasy.--Great strikes in Belgium. The government preparing to repress </p><p>outbreaks. Shocking facts in regard to the employment of girls in </p><p>Belgium coal mines.--Wholesale evictions in Ireland. </p><p>"HOME AFFAIRS.--The epidemic of fraud unchecked. Embezzlement of </p><p>half a million in New York.--Misappropriation of a trust fund by executors. </p><p>Orphans left penniless.--Clever system of thefts by a bank teller; </p><p>$50,000 gone.--The coal barons decide to advance the price of coal and </p><p>reduce production.--Speculators engineering a great wheat corner at </p><p>Chicago.--A clique forcing up the price of coffee.--Enormous </p><p>land-grabs of Western syndicates.--Revelations of shocking corruption </p><p>among Chicago officials. Systematic bribery.--The trials of the Boodle </p><p>aldermen to go on at New York.--Large failures of business houses. </p><p>Fears of a business crisis.--A large grist of burglaries and </p><p>larcenies.--A woman murdered in cold blood for her money at New </p><p>Haven.--A householder shot by a burglar in this city last night.--A </p><p>man shoots himself in Worcester because he could not get work. A large </p><p>family left destitute.--An aged couple in New Jersey commit suicide </p><p>rather than go to the poor-house.--Pitiable destitution among the </p><p>women wage-workers in the great cities.--Startling growth of </p><p>illiteracy in Massachusetts.--More insane asylums wanted.--Decoration </p><p>Day addresses. Professor Brown's oration on the moral grandeur of </p><p>nineteenth century civilization." </p><p>* * * * *</p><p>It was indeed the nineteenth century to which I had awaked; there </p><p>could be no kind of doubt about that. Its complete microcosm this</p><p>summary of the day's news had presented, even to that last </p><p>unmistakable touch of fatuous self-complacency. Coming after such a </p><p>damning indictment of the age as that one day's chronicle of </p><p>world-wide bloodshed, greed, and tyranny, was a bit of cynicism worthy </p><p>of Mephistopheles, and yet of all whose eyes it had met this morning I </p><p>was, perhaps, the only one who perceived the cynicism, and but </p><p>yesterday I should have perceived it no more than the others. That </p><p>strange dream it was which had made all the difference. For I know not </p><p>how long, I forgot my surroundings after this, and was again in fancy </p><p>moving in that vivid dream-world, in that glorious city, with its </p><p>homes of simple comfort and its gorgeous public palaces. Around me </p><p>were again faces unmarred by arrogance or servility, by envy or greed, </p><p>by anxious care or feverish ambition, and stately forms of men and </p><p>women who had never known fear of a fellow man or depended on his </p><p>favor, but always, in the words of that sermon which still rang in my </p><p>ears, had "stood up straight before God." </p><p>With a profound sigh and a sense of irreparable loss, not the less </p><p>poignant that it was a loss of what had never really been, I roused at </p><p>last from my reverie, and soon after left the house. </p><p>A dozen times between my door and Washington Street I had to stop and </p><p>pull myself together, such power had been in that vision of the Boston </p><p>of the future to make the real Boston strange. The squalor and </p><p>malodorousness of the town struck me, from the moment I stood upon the </p><p>street, as facts I had never before observed. But yesterday, moreover, </p><p>it had seemed quite a matter of course that some of my fellow-citizens </p><p>should wear silks, and others rags, that some should look well fed, </p><p>and others hungry. Now on the contrary the glaring disparities in the </p><p>dress and condition of the men and women who brushed each other on the </p><p>sidewalks shocked me at every step, and yet more the entire </p><p>indifference which the prosperous showed to the plight of the </p><p>unfortunate. Were these human beings, who could behold the </p><p>wretchedness of their fellows without so much as a change of </p><p>countenance? And yet, all the while, I knew well that it was I who had </p><p>changed, and not my contemporaries. I had dreamed of a city whose </p><p>people fared all alike as children of one family and were one </p><p>another's keepers in all things. </p><p>Another feature of the real Boston, which assumed the extraordinary </p><p>effect of strangeness that marks familiar things seen in a new light, </p><p>was the prevalence of advertising. There had been no personal </p><p>advertising in the Boston of the twentieth century, because there was </p><p>no need of any, but here the walls of the buildings, the windows, the </p><p>broadsides of the newspapers in every hand, the very pavements, </p><p>everything in fact in sight, save the sky, were covered with the </p><p>appeals of individuals who sought, under innumerable pretexts, to </p><p>attract the contributions of others to their support. However the </p><p>wording might vary, the tenor of all these appeals was the same:-- </p><p>"Help John Jones. Never mind the rest. They are frauds. I, John Jones, </p><p>am the right one. Buy of me. Employ me. Visit me. Hear me, John Jones. </p><p>Look at me. Make no mistake, John Jones is the man and nobody else. </p><p>Let the rest starve, but for God's sake remember John Jones!" </p><p>Whether the pathos or the moral repulsiveness of the spectacle most </p><p>impressed me, so suddenly become a stranger in my own city, I know </p><p>not. Wretched men, I was moved to cry, who, because they will not </p><p>learn to be helpers of one another, are doomed to be beggars of one</p><p>another from the least to the greatest! This horrible babel of </p><p>shameless self-assertion and mutual depreciation, this stunning clamor </p><p>of conflicting boasts, appeals, and adjurations, this stupendous </p><p>system of brazen beggary, what was it all but the necessity of a </p><p>society in which the opportunity to serve the world according to his </p><p>gifts, instead of being secured to every man as the first object of </p><p>social organization, had to be fought for! </p><p>I reached Washington Street at the busiest point, and there I stood </p><p>and laughed aloud, to the scandal of the passers-by. For my life I </p><p>could not have helped it, with such a mad humor was I moved at sight </p><p>of the interminable rows of stores on either side, up and down the </p><p>street so far as I could see,--scores of them, to make the spectacle </p><p>more utterly preposterous, within a stone's throw devoted to selling </p><p>the same sort of goods. Stores! stores! stores! miles of stores! ten </p><p>thousand stores to distribute the goods needed by this one city, which </p><p>in my dream had been supplied with all things from a single warehouse, </p><p>as they were ordered through one great store in every quarter, where </p><p>the buyer, without waste of time or labor, found under one roof the </p><p>world's assortment in whatever line he desired. There the labor of </p><p>distribution had been so slight as to add but a scarcely perceptible </p><p>fraction to the cost of commodities to the user. The cost of </p><p>production was virtually all he paid. But here the mere distribution </p><p>of the goods, their handling alone, added a fourth, a third, a half </p><p>and more, to the cost. All these ten thousand plants must be paid for, </p><p>their rent, their staffs of superintendence, their platoons of </p><p>salesmen, their ten thousand sets of accountants, jobbers, and </p><p>business dependents, with all they spent in advertising themselves and </p><p>fighting one another, and the consumers must do the paying. What a </p><p>famous process for beggaring a nation! </p><p>Were these serious men I saw about me, or children, who did their </p><p>business on such a plan? Could they be reasoning beings, who did not </p><p>see the folly which, when the product is made and ready for use, </p><p>wastes so much of it in getting it to the user? If people eat with a </p><p>spoon that leaks half its contents between bowl and lip, are they not </p><p>likely to go hungry? </p><p>I had passed through Washington Street thousands of times before and </p><p>viewed the ways of those who sold merchandise, but my curiosity </p><p>concerning them was as if I had never gone by their way before. I took </p><p>wondering note of the show windows of the stores, filled with goods </p><p>arranged with a wealth of pains and artistic device to attract the </p><p>eye. I saw the throngs of ladies looking in, and the proprietors </p><p>eagerly watching the effect of the bait. I went within and noted the </p><p>hawk-eyed floor-walker watching for business, overlooking the clerks, </p><p>keeping them up to their task of inducing the customers to buy, buy, </p><p>buy, for money if they had it, for credit if they had it not, to buy </p><p>what they wanted not, more than they wanted, what they could not </p><p>afford. At times I momentarily lost the clue and was confused by the </p><p>sight. Why this effort to induce people to buy? Surely that had </p><p>nothing to do with the legitimate business of distributing products to </p><p>those who needed them. Surely it was the sheerest waste to force upon </p><p>people what they did not want, but what might be useful to another. </p><p>The nation was so much the poorer for every such achievement. What </p><p>were these clerks thinking of? Then I would remember that they were </p><p>not acting as distributors like those in the store I had visited in </p><p>the dream Boston. They were not serving the public interest, but their </p><p>immediate personal interest, and it was nothing to them what the</p><p>ultimate effect of their course on the general prosperity might be, if </p><p>but they increased their own hoard, for these goods were their own, </p><p>and the more they sold and the more they got for them, the greater </p><p>their gain. The more wasteful the people were, the more articles they </p><p>did not want which they could be induced to buy, the better for these </p><p>sellers. To encourage prodigality was the express aim of the ten </p><p>thousand stores of Boston. </p><p>Nor were these storekeepers and clerks a whit worse men than any </p><p>others in Boston. They must earn a living and support their families, </p><p>and how were they to find a trade to do it by which did not </p><p>necessitate placing their individual interests before those of others </p><p>and that of all? They could not be asked to starve while they waited </p><p>for an order of things such as I had seen in my dream, in which the </p><p>interest of each and that of all were identical. But, God in heaven! </p><p>what wonder, under such a system as this about me--what wonder that </p><p>the city was so shabby, and the people so meanly dressed, and so many </p><p>of them ragged and hungry! </p><p>Some time after this it was that I drifted over into South Boston and </p><p>found myself among the manufacturing establishments. I had been in </p><p>this quarter of the city a hundred times before, just as I had been on </p><p>Washington Street, but here, as well as there, I now first perceived </p><p>the true significance of what I witnessed. Formerly I had taken pride </p><p>in the fact that, by actual count, Boston had some four thousand </p><p>independent manufacturing establishments; but in this very </p><p>multiplicity and independence I recognized now the secret of the </p><p>insignificant total product of their industry. </p><p>If Washington Street had been like a lane in Bedlam, this was a </p><p>spectacle as much more melancholy as production is a more vital </p><p>function, than distribution. For not only were these four thousand </p><p>establishments not working in concert, and for that reason alone </p><p>operating at prodigious disadvantage, but, as if this did not involve </p><p>a sufficiently disastrous loss of power, they were using their utmost </p><p>skill to frustrate one another's effort, praying by night and working </p><p>by day for the destruction of one another's enterprises. </p><p>The roar and rattle of wheels and hammers resounding from every side </p><p>was not the hum of a peaceful industry, but the clangor of swords </p><p>wielded by foemen. These mills and shops were so many forts, each </p><p>under its own flag, its guns trained on the mills and shops about it, </p><p>and its sappers busy below, undermining them. </p><p>Within each one of these forts the strictest organization of industry </p><p>was insisted on; the separate gangs worked under a single central </p><p>authority. No interference and no duplicating of work were permitted. </p><p>Each had his allotted task, and none were idle. By what hiatus in the </p><p>logical faculty, by what lost link of reasoning, account, then, for </p><p>the failure to recognize the necessity of applying the same principle </p><p>to the organization of the national industries as a whole, to see that </p><p>if lack of organization could impair the efficiency of a shop, it must </p><p>have effects as much more disastrous in disabling the industries of </p><p>the nation at large as the latter are vaster in volume and more </p><p>complex in the relationship of their parts. </p><p>People would be prompt enough to ridicule an army in which there were </p><p>neither companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, or army </p><p>corps,--no unit of organization, in fact, larger than the corporal's</p><p>squad, with no officer higher than a corporal, and all the corporals </p><p>equal in authority. And yet just such an army were the manufacturing </p><p>industries of nineteenth century Boston, an army of four thousand </p><p>independent squads led by four thousand independent corporals, each </p><p>with a separate plan of campaign. </p><p>Knots of idle men were to be seen here and there on every side, some </p><p>idle because they could find no work at any price, others because they </p><p>could not get what they thought a fair price. </p><p>I accosted some of the latter, and they told me their grievances. It </p><p>was very little comfort I could give them. "I am sorry for you," I </p><p>said. "You get little enough, certainly, and yet the wonder to me is, </p><p>not that industries conducted as these are do not pay you living </p><p>wages, but that they are able to pay you any wages at all." </p><p>Making my way back again after this to the peninsular city, toward </p><p>three o'clock I stood on State Street, staring, as if I had never seen </p><p>them before, at the banks and brokers' offices, and other financial </p><p>institutions, of which there had been in the State Street of my vision </p><p>no vestige. Business men, confidential clerks, and errand boys were </p><p>thronging in and out of the banks, for it wanted but a few minutes of </p><p>the closing hour. Opposite me was the bank where I did business, and </p><p>presently I crossed the street, and, going in with the crowd, stood in </p><p>a recess of the wall looking on at the army of clerks handling money, </p><p>and the cues of depositors at the tellers' windows. An old gentleman </p><p>whom I knew, a director of the bank, passing me and observing my </p><p>contemplative attitude, stopped a moment. </p><p>"Interesting sight, isn't it, Mr. West," he said. "Wonderful piece of </p><p>mechanism; I find it so myself. I like sometimes to stand and look on </p><p>at it just as you are doing. It's a poem, sir, a poem, that's what I </p><p>call it. Did you ever think, Mr. West, that the bank is the heart of </p><p>the business system? From it and to it, in endless flux and reflux, </p><p>the life blood goes. It is flowing in now. It will flow out again in </p><p>the morning;" and pleased with his little conceit, the old man passed </p><p>on smiling. </p><p>Yesterday I should have considered the simile apt enough, but since </p><p>then I had visited a world incomparably more affluent than this, in </p><p>which money was unknown and without conceivable use. I had learned </p><p>that it had a use in the world around me only because the work of </p><p>producing the nation's livelihood, instead of being regarded as the </p><p>most strictly public and common of all concerns, and as such conducted </p><p>by the nation, was abandoned to the hap-hazard efforts of individuals. </p><p>This original mistake necessitated endless exchanges to bring about </p><p>any sort of general distribution of products. These exchanges money </p><p>effected--how equitably, might be seen in a walk from the tenement </p><p>house districts to the Back Bay--at the cost of an army of men taken </p><p>from productive labor to manage it, with constant ruinous breakdowns </p><p>of its machinery, and a generally debauching influence on mankind </p><p>which had justified its description, from ancient time, as the "root </p><p>of all evil." </p><p>Alas for the poor old bank director with his poem! He had mistaken the </p><p>throbbing of an abscess for the beating of the heart. What he called </p><p>"a wonderful piece of mechanism" was an imperfect device to remedy an </p><p>unnecessary defect, the clumsy crutch of a self-made cripple. </p><p>After the banks had closed I wandered aimlessly about the business </p><p>quarter for an hour or two, and later sat a while on one of the </p><p>benches of the Common, finding an interest merely in watching the </p><p>throngs that passed, such as one has in studying the populace of a </p><p>foreign city, so strange since yesterday had my fellow citizens and </p><p>their ways become to me. For thirty years I had lived among them, and </p><p>yet I seemed to have never noted before how drawn and anxious were </p><p>their faces, of the rich as of the poor, the refined, acute faces of </p><p>the educated as well as the dull masks of the ignorant. And well it </p><p>might be so, for I saw now, as never before I had seen so plainly, </p><p>that each as he walked constantly turned to catch the whispers of a </p><p>spectre at his ear, the spectre of Uncertainty. "Do your work never so </p><p>well," the spectre was whispering,--"rise early and toil till late, </p><p>rob cunningly or serve faithfully, you shall never know security. Rich </p><p>you may be now and still come to poverty at last. Leave never so much </p><p>wealth to your children, you cannot buy the assurance that your son </p><p>may not be the servant of your servant, or that your daughter will not </p><p>have to sell herself for bread." </p><p>A man passing by thrust an advertising card in my hand, which set </p><p>forth the merits of some new scheme of life insurance. The incident </p><p>reminded me of the only device, pathetic in its admission of the </p><p>universal need it so poorly supplied, which offered these tired and </p><p>hunted men and women even a partial protection from uncertainty. By </p><p>this means, those already well-to-do, I remembered, might purchase a </p><p>precarious confidence that after their death their loved ones would </p><p>not, for a while at least, be trampled under the feet of men. But this </p><p>was all, and this was only for those who could pay well for it. What </p><p>idea was possible to these wretched dwellers in the land of Ishmael, </p><p>where every man's hand was against each and the hand of each against </p><p>every other, of true life insurance as I had seen it among the people </p><p>of that dream land, each of whom, by virtue merely of his membership </p><p>in the national family, was guaranteed against need of any sort, by a </p><p>policy underwritten by one hundred million fellow countrymen. </p><p>Some time after this it was that I recall a glimpse of myself standing </p><p>on the steps of a building on Tremont Street, looking at a military </p><p>parade. A regiment was passing. It was the first sight in that dreary </p><p>day which had inspired me with any other emotions than wondering pity </p><p>and amazement. Here at last were order and reason, an exhibition of </p><p>what intelligent co�peration can accomplish. The people who stood </p><p>looking on with kindling faces,--could it be that the sight had for </p><p>them no more than but a spectacular interest? Could they fail to see </p><p>that it was their perfect concert of action, their organization under </p><p>one control, which made these men the tremendous engine they were, </p><p>able to vanquish a mob ten times as numerous? Seeing this so plainly, </p><p>could they fail to compare the scientific manner in which the nation </p><p>went to war with the unscientific manner in which it went to work? </p><p>Would they not query since what time the killing of men had been a </p><p>task so much more important than feeding and clothing them, that a </p><p>trained army should be deemed alone adequate to the former, while the </p><p>latter was left to a mob? </p><p>It was now toward nightfall, and the streets were thronged with the </p><p>workers from the stores, the shops, and mills. Carried along with the </p><p>stronger part of the current, I found myself, as it began to grow </p><p>dark, in the midst of a scene of squalor and human degradation such as </p><p>only the South Cove tenement district could present. I had seen the </p><p>mad wasting of human labor; here I saw in direst shape the want that</p><p>waste had bred. </p><p>From the black doorways and windows of the rookeries on every side </p><p>came gusts of fetid air. The streets and alleys reeked with the </p><p>effluvia of a slave ship's between-decks. As I passed I had glimpses </p><p>within of pale babies gasping out their lives amid sultry stenches, of </p><p>hopeless-faced women deformed by hardship, retaining of womanhood no </p><p>trait save weakness, while from the windows leered girls with brows of </p><p>brass. Like the starving bands of mongrel curs that infest the streets </p><p>of Moslem towns, swarms of half-clad brutalized children filled the </p><p>air with shrieks and curses as they fought and tumbled among the </p><p>garbage that littered the court-yards. </p><p>There was nothing in all this that was new to me. Often had I passed </p><p>through this part of the city and witnessed its sights with feelings </p><p>of disgust mingled with a certain philosophical wonder at the </p><p>extremities mortals will endure and still cling to life. But not alone </p><p>as regarded the economical follies of this age, but equally as touched </p><p>its moral abominations, scales had fallen from my eyes since that </p><p>vision of another century. No more did I look upon the woful dwellers </p><p>in this Inferno with a callous curiosity as creatures scarcely human. </p><p>I saw in them my brothers and sisters, my parents, my children, flesh </p><p>of my flesh, blood of my blood. The festering mass of human </p><p>wretchedness about me offended not now my senses merely, but pierced </p><p>my heart like a knife, so that I could not repress sighs and groans. I </p><p>not only saw but felt in my body all that I saw. </p><p>Presently, too, as I observed the wretched beings about me more </p><p>closely, I perceived that they were all quite dead. Their bodies were </p><p>so many living sepulchres. On each brutal brow was plainly written the </p><p>_hic jacet_ of a soul dead within. </p><p>As I looked, horror struck, from one death's head to another, I was </p><p>affected by a singular hallucination. Like a wavering translucent </p><p>spirit face superimposed upon each of these brutish masks I saw the </p><p>ideal, the possible face that would have been the actual if mind and </p><p>soul had lived. It was not till I was aware of these ghostly faces, </p><p>and of the reproach that could not be gainsaid which was in their </p><p>eyes, that the full piteousness of the ruin that had been wrought was </p><p>revealed to me. I was moved with contrition as with a strong agony, </p><p>for I had been one of those who had endured that these things should </p><p>be. I had been one of those who, well knowing that they were, had not </p><p>desired to hear or be compelled to think much of them, but had gone on </p><p>as if they were not, seeking my own pleasure and profit. Therefore now </p><p>I found upon my garments the blood of this great multitude of </p><p>strangled souls of my brothers. The voice of their blood cried out </p><p>against me from the ground. Every stone of the reeking pavements, </p><p>every brick of the pestilential rookeries, found a tongue and called </p><p>after me as I fled: What hast thou done with thy brother Abel? </p><p>I have no clear recollection of anything after this till I found </p><p>myself standing on the carved stone steps of the magnificent home of </p><p>my betrothed in Commonwealth avenue. Amid the tumult of my thoughts </p><p>that day, I had scarcely once thought of her, but now obeying some </p><p>unconscious impulse my feet had found the familiar way to her door. I </p><p>was told that the family were at dinner, but word was sent out that I </p><p>should join them at table. Besides the family, I found several guests </p><p>present, all known to me. The table glittered with plate and costly </p><p>china. The ladies were sumptuously dressed and wore the jewels of</p><p>queens. The scene was one of costly elegance and lavish luxury. The </p><p>company was in excellent spirits, and there was plentiful laughter and </p><p>a running fire of jests. </p><p>To me it was as if, in wandering through the place of doom, my blood </p><p>turned to tears by its sights, and my spirit attuned to sorrow, pity, </p><p>and despair, I had happened in some glade upon a merry party of </p><p>roisterers. I sat in silence until Edith began to rally me upon my </p><p>sombre looks, What ailed me? The others presently joined in the </p><p>playful assault, and I became a target for quips and jests. Where had </p><p>I been, and what had I seen to make such a dull fellow of me? </p><p>"I have been in Golgotha," at last I answered. "I have seen Humanity </p><p>hanging on a cross! Do none of you know what sights the sun and stars </p><p>look down on in this city, that you can think and talk of anything </p><p>else? Do you not know that close to your doors a great multitude of </p><p>men and women, flesh of your flesh, live lives that are one agony from </p><p>birth to death? Listen! their dwellings are so near that if you hush </p><p>your laughter you will hear their grievous voices, the piteous crying </p><p>of the little ones that suckle poverty, the hoarse curses of men </p><p>sodden in misery, turned half-way back to brutes, the chaffering of an </p><p>army of women selling themselves for bread. With what have you stopped </p><p>your ears that you do not hear these doleful sounds? For me, I can </p><p>hear nothing else." </p><p>Silence followed my words. A passion of pity had shaken me as I spoke, </p><p>but when I looked around upon the company, I saw that, far from being </p><p>stirred as I was, their faces expressed a cold and hard astonishment, </p><p>mingled in Edith's with extreme mortification, in her father's with </p><p>anger. The ladies were exchanging scandalized looks, while one of the </p><p>gentlemen had put up his eyeglass and was studying me with an air of </p><p>scientific curiosity, When I saw that things which were to me so </p><p>intolerable moved them not at all, that words that melted my heart to </p><p>speak had only offended them with the speaker, I was at first stunned </p><p>and then overcome with a desperate sickness and faintness at the </p><p>heart. What hope was there for the wretched, for the world, if </p><p>thoughtful men and tender women were not moved by things like these! </p><p>Then I bethought myself that it must be because I had not spoken </p><p>aright. No doubt I had put the case badly. They were angry because </p><p>they thought I was berating them, when God knew I was merely thinking </p><p>of the horror of the fact without any attempt to assign the </p><p>responsibility for it. </p><p>I restrained my passion, and tried to speak calmly and logically that </p><p>I might correct this impression. I told them that I had not meant to </p><p>accuse them, as if they, or the rich in general, were responsible for </p><p>the misery of the world. True indeed it was, that the superfluity </p><p>which they wasted would, otherwise bestowed, relieve much bitter </p><p>suffering. These costly viands, these rich wines, these gorgeous </p><p>fabrics and glistening jewels represented the ransom of many lives. </p><p>They were verily not without the guiltiness of those who waste in a </p><p>land stricken with famine. Nevertheless, all the waste of all the </p><p>rich, were it saved, would go but a little way to cure the poverty of </p><p>the world. There was so little to divide that even if the rich went </p><p>share and share with the poor, there would be but a common fare of </p><p>crusts, albeit made very sweet then by brotherly love. </p><p>The folly of men, not their hard-heartedness, was the great cause of </p><p>the world's poverty. It was not the crime of man, nor of any class of</p><p>men, that made the race so miserable, but a hideous, ghastly mistake, </p><p>a colossal world-darkening blunder. And then I showed them how four </p><p>fifths of the labor of men was utterly wasted by the mutual warfare, </p><p>the lack of organization and concert among the workers. Seeking to </p><p>make the matter very plain, I instanced the case of arid lands where </p><p>the soil yielded the means of life only by careful use of the </p><p>watercourses for irrigation. I showed how in such countries it was </p><p>counted the most important function of the government to see that the </p><p>water was not wasted by the selfishness or ignorance of individuals, </p><p>since otherwise there would be famine. To this end its use was </p><p>strictly regulated and systematized, and individuals of their mere </p><p>caprice were not permitted to dam it or divert it, or in any way to </p><p>tamper with it. </p><p>The labor of men, I explained, was the fertilizing stream which alone </p><p>rendered earth habitable. It was but a scanty stream at best, and its </p><p>use required to be regulated by a system which expended every drop to </p><p>the best advantage, if the world were to be supported in abundance. </p><p>But how far from any system was the actual practice! Every man wasted </p><p>the precious fluid as he wished, animated only by the equal motives of </p><p>saving his own crop and spoiling his neighbor's, that his might sell </p><p>the better. What with greed and what with spite some fields were </p><p>flooded while others were parched, and half the water ran wholly to </p><p>waste. In such a land, though a few by strength or cunning might win </p><p>the means of luxury, the lot of the great mass must be poverty, and of </p><p>the weak and ignorant bitter want and perennial famine. </p><p>Let but the famine-stricken nation assume the function it had </p><p>neglected, and regulate for the common good the course of the </p><p>life-giving stream, and the earth would bloom like one garden, and </p><p>none of its children lack any good thing. I described the physical </p><p>felicity, mental enlightenment, and moral elevation which would then </p><p>attend the lives of all men. With fervency I spoke of that new world, </p><p>blessed with plenty, purified by justice and sweetened by brotherly </p><p>kindness, the world of which I had indeed but dreamed, but which might </p><p>so easily be made real. But when I had expected now surely the faces </p><p>around me to light up with emotions akin to mine, they grew ever more </p><p>dark, angry, and scornful. Instead of enthusiasm, the ladies showed </p><p>only aversion and dread, while the men interrupted me with shouts of </p><p>reprobation and contempt. "Madman!" "Pestilent fellow!" "Fanatic!" </p><p>"Enemy of society!" were some of their cries, and the one who had </p><p>before taken his eyeglass to me exclaimed, "He says we are to have no </p><p>more poor. Ha! ha!" </p><p>"Put the fellow out!" exclaimed the father of my betrothed, and at the </p><p>signal the men sprang from their chairs and advanced upon me. </p><p>It seemed to me that my heart would burst with the anguish of finding </p><p>that what was to me so plain and so all-important was to them </p><p>meaningless, and that I was powerless to make it other. So hot had </p><p>been my heart that I had thought to melt an iceberg with its glow, </p><p>only to find at last the overmastering chill seizing my own vitals. It </p><p>was not enmity that I felt toward them as they thronged me, but pity </p><p>only, for them and for the world. </p><p>Although despairing, I could not give over. Still I strove with them. </p><p>Tears poured from my eyes. In my vehemence I became inarticulate. I </p><p>panted, I sobbed, I groaned, and immediately afterward found myself </p><p>sitting upright in bed in my room in Dr. Leete's house, and the</p><p>morning sun shining through the open window into my eyes. I was </p><p>gasping. The tears were streaming down my face, and I quivered in </p><p>every nerve. </p><p>* * * * *</p><p>As with an escaped convict who dreams that he has been recaptured and </p><p>brought back to his dark and reeking dungeon, and opens his eyes to </p><p>see the heaven's vault spread above him, so it was with me, as I </p><p>realized that my return to the nineteenth century had been the dream, </p><p>and my presence in the twentieth was the reality. </p><p>The cruel sights which I had witnessed in my vision, and could so well </p><p>confirm from the experience of my former life, though they had, alas! </p><p>once been, and must in the retrospect to the end of time move the </p><p>compassionate to tears, were, God be thanked, forever gone by. Long </p><p>ago oppressor and oppressed, prophet and scorner, had been dust. For </p><p>generations, rich and poor had been forgotten words. </p><p>But in that moment, while yet I mused with unspeakable thankfulness </p><p>upon the greatness of the world's salvation and my privilege in </p><p>beholding it, there suddenly pierced me like a knife a pang of shame, </p><p>remorse, and wondering self-reproach, that bowed my head upon my </p><p>breast and made me wish the grave had hid me with my fellows from the </p><p>sun. For I had been a man of that former time. What had I done to help </p><p>on the deliverance whereat I now presumed to rejoice? I who had lived </p><p>in those cruel, insensate days, what had I done to bring them to an </p><p>end? I had been every whit as indifferent to the wretchedness of my </p><p>brothers, as cynically incredulous of better things, as besotted a </p><p>worshipper of Chaos and Old Night, as any of my fellows. So far as my </p><p>personal influence went, it had been exerted rather to hinder than to </p><p>help forward the enfranchisement of the race which was even then </p><p>preparing. What right had I to hail a salvation which reproached me, </p><p>to rejoice in a day whose dawning I had mocked? </p><p>"Better for you, better for you," a voice within me rang, "had this </p><p>evil dream been the reality, and this fair reality the dream; better </p><p>your part pleading for crucified humanity with a scoffing generation, </p><p>than here, drinking of wells you digged not, and eating of trees whose </p><p>husbandmen you stoned;" and my spirit answered, "Better, truly." </p><p>When at length I raised my bowed head and looked forth from the </p><p>window, Edith, fresh as the morning, had come into the garden and was </p><p>gathering flowers. I hastened to descend to her. Kneeling before her, </p><p>with my face in the dust, I confessed with tears how little was my </p><p>worth to breathe the air of this golden century, and how infinitely </p><p>less to wear upon my breast its consummate flower. Fortunate is he </p><p>who, with a case so desperate as mine, finds a judge so merciful. </p><p>POSTSCRIPT. </p><p>THE RATE OF THE WORLD'S PROGRESS. </p><p>_To the Editor of the Boston Transcript_: The Transcript of March 30, </p><p>1888, contained a review of _Looking Backward_, in response to which I</p><p>beg to be allowed a word. The description to which the book is </p><p>devoted, of the radically new social and industrial institutions and </p><p>arrangements supposed to be enjoyed by the people of the United States </p><p>in the twentieth century, is not objected to as depicting a degree of </p><p>human felicity and moral development necessarily unattainable by the </p><p>race, provided time enough had been allowed for its evolution from the </p><p>present chaotic state of society. In failing to allow this, the </p><p>reviewer thinks that the author has made an absurd mistake, which </p><p>seriously detracts from the value of the book as a work of realistic </p><p>imagination. Instead of placing the realization of the ideal social </p><p>state a scant fifty years ahead, it is suggested that he should have </p><p>made his figure seventy-five centuries. There is certainly a large </p><p>discrepancy between seventy-five centuries and fifty years, and if the </p><p>reviewer is correct in his estimate of the probable rate of human </p><p>progress, the outlook of the world is decidedly discouraging. But is </p><p>he right? I think not. </p><p>_Looking Backward_, although in form a fanciful romance, is intended, </p><p>in all seriousness, as a forecast, in accordance with the principles </p><p>of evolution, of the next stage in the industrial and social </p><p>development of humanity, especially in this country; and no part of it </p><p>is believed by the author to be better supported by the indications of </p><p>probability than the implied prediction that the dawn of the new era </p><p>is already near at hand, and that the full day will swiftly follow. </p><p>Does this seem at first thought incredible, in view of the vastness of </p><p>the changes presupposed? What is the teaching of history, but that </p><p>great national transformations, while ages in unnoticed preparation, </p><p>when once inaugurated, are accomplished with a rapidity and resistless </p><p>momentum proportioned to their magnitude, not limited by it? </p><p>In 1759, when Quebec fell, the might of England in America seemed </p><p>irresistible, and the vassalage of the colonies assured. Nevertheless, </p><p>thirty years later, the first President of the American Republic was </p><p>inaugurated. In 1849, after Novara, Italian prospects appeared as </p><p>hopeless as at any time since the Middle Ages; yet only fifteen years </p><p>after, Victor Emmanuel was crowned King of United Italy. In 1864, the </p><p>fulfillment of the thousand-year dream of German unity was apparently </p><p>as far off as ever. Seven years later it had been realized, and </p><p>William had assumed at Versailles the Crown of Barbarossa. In 1832, </p><p>the original Anti-slavery Society was formed in Boston by a few </p><p>so-called visionaries. Thirty-eight years later, in 1870, the society </p><p>disbanded, its programme fully carried out. </p><p>These precedents do not, of course, prove that any such industrial and </p><p>social transformation as is outlined in _Looking Backward_ is </p><p>impending; but they do show that, when the moral and economical </p><p>conditions for it are ripe, it may be expected to go forward with </p><p>great rapidity. On no other stage are the scenes shifted with a </p><p>swiftness so like magic as on the great stage of history when once the </p><p>hour strikes. The question is not, then, how extensive the </p><p>scene-shifting must be to set the stage for the new fraternal </p><p>civilization, but whether there are any special indications that a </p><p>social transformation is at hand. The causes that have been bringing </p><p>it ever nearer have been at work from immemorial time. To the stream </p><p>of tendency setting toward an ultimate realization of a form of </p><p>society which, while vastly more efficient for material prosperity, </p><p>should also satisfy and not outrage the moral instincts, every sigh of </p><p>poverty, every tear of pity, every humane impulse, every generous </p><p>enthusiasm, every true religious feeling, every act by which men have</p><p>given effect to their mutual sympathy by drawing more closely together </p><p>for any purpose, have contributed from the beginnings of </p><p>civilization. That this long stream of influence, ever widening and </p><p>deepening, is at last about to sweep away the barriers it has so long </p><p>sapped, is at least one obvious interpretation of the present </p><p>universal ferment of men's minds as to the imperfections of present </p><p>social arrangements. Not only are the toilers of the world engaged in </p><p>something like a world-wide insurrection, but true and humane men and </p><p>women, of every degree, are in a mood of exasperation, verging on </p><p>absolute revolt, against social conditions that reduce life to a </p><p>brutal struggle for existence, mock every dictate of ethics and </p><p>religion, and render wellnigh futile the efforts of philanthropy. </p><p>As an iceberg, floating southward from the frozen North, is gradually </p><p>undermined by warmer seas, and, become at last unstable, churns the </p><p>sea to yeast for miles around by the mighty rockings that portend its </p><p>overturn, so the barbaric industrial and social system, which has come </p><p>down to us from savage antiquity, undermined by the modern humane </p><p>spirit, riddled by the criticism of economic science, is shaking the </p><p>world with convulsions that presage its collapse. </p><p>All thoughtful men agree that the present aspect of society is </p><p>portentous of great changes. The only question is, whether they will </p><p>be for the better or the worse. Those who believe in man's essential </p><p>nobleness lean to the former view, those who believe in his essential </p><p>baseness to the latter. For my part, I hold to the former opinion. </p><p>_Looking Backward_ was written in the belief that the Golden Age lies </p><p>before us and not behind us, and is not far away. Our children will </p><p>surely see it, and we, too, who are already men and women, if we </p><p>deserve it by our faith and by our works. </p><p> EDWARD BELLAMY</p><p>End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy </p><p>*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOOKING BACKWARD *** </p><p>***** This file should be named 25439-8.txt or 25439-8.zip ***** </p><p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: </p><p> http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/4/3/25439/</p><p>Produced by Jana Srna, David T. 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