AN EPISODE IN THE Doings of the Dualized.

CHAPTER I.

This was the way it happened. Like all beginnings of things, the roots were in the dark. Ethelbert Daksha came of a family in which girls counted for a big half of all that was bright and interesting.

The Dakshas were a delightful family every way, except, perhaps, in the matter of money-wealth. That seemed constitutionally lacking, because you will see yourself that people who take great interest in devising ways of spending money, and very little in devising ways of getting it to spend, in the constitution of things are lacking in money-wealth. But they had everything else except money, and their chief thought in regard to that lack was an amiable perplexity that it seemed to be such a desideratum in affairs of society. There was a big but exhausted English property on the mother’s side; and this strain of high English blood was mixed with a dash of hard-headed German culture and a few drops from the veins of a Spanish dame, lady-mother of the Hidalgos. So, you see, when, ninety years before, a discontent with something in the Old World society had set the elder Daksha down on American soil, various European nationalities were transplanted to root as best might be in American civilization. In addition to all this, as faith in all things high, bounded brightly in the Daniel

O’Connell blood which coursed through Daniel Daksha’s veins, it was very natural that his daughter Ethelbert, considering as she did that all nationalities were equally admirable for different virtues, should be greatly astonished that there should be quarrels between those of different countries, when the blood of four nations coursed so amicably in her own veins. If ever there were a girl who, in the nature of things was a typical American, it was Ethelbert Daksha, with the race-drift 6of Europe, Asia and Africa in her individual veins, as our nation carries it in its aggregated citizenship.

Mr. Daksha recognized all this. He was one of the dreamers who work, at whose feet life lays its crown of success; although so far his many admirable schemes for regenerating society had made him at once the most serviceable and the most impecunious of mortals. He had abundant means, but little money; and while it might be stretching a point to say the Dakshas cultivated a life of beauty on a little oatmeal, yet it would give a hint at the way in which beauty was cultivated in that simple home, where oatmeal was the chief of their diet; that is, if you leave out of the reckoning the best periodicals and old writings of all climes and ages. These things were really the chief of their diet, and had much to do with the fact that they, like the old lady who lived on the hill, were scarce ever quiet concerning the topic of the ideal order of society which is soon coming to our nation, and through us to the world.

Life among the Dakshas was like a bit of Greek art transplanted to the robust civilization of this country, which is trying so hard to assimilate its many diverse elements. The theory of the elegant Greeks was: “What the spirit wills, the body must.” This theory had been practicalized more or less fully by O’Connell, who knew no law stronger than that of the necessities, which he deemed were laid on him as liberator of his people. The same theory had been the impelling power of the Spanish proverb which, translated, reads: “In his own soul, and not in that of another, must the principle of one’s actions be established.” While the German element, which fills the veins of England’s crowned family, in quick response to the same idea, cried out: “Let every man hear for himself, and hearing, then speak.”

So as you may well suppose, the theory that spirit is master and body is only the good servant to do the spirit’s bidding, met some rebuffs as the Dakshas lived it out midst that portion of the newly rich who devote their energies to saving—not MAN, but money. And so much were the 7Dakshas in love with their beautiful ideals that but for their good common sense they would have become domineering dogmatists; and thus, properly, would have made themselves greatly disliked, and therefore, incapacitated for service.

About forty odd years before this episode the heads of the Daksha family had settled themselves to the recognition that the inordinate frenzy for money-making which was deluging its possessors, would insure many low tragedies in high (?) life; and to the recognition that society was becoming but like a witch’s caldron with its seethe and bubble of toil and trouble, and with its inodorous stench of poison things, flung into it by the witches and wizards, as they carry out their passion-dance on the old Harry’s pavilion.

Of course the Dakshas had their opinion of this besotted high (?) life, with its stimulation of that excitement which wrecks nerve and brain. But they did not presume to force the virtues of self-culture on persons whose highest dream of success was TO INCREASE THEIR CHANCES FOR THIS INDULGENCE IN HIGH OLD TIMES, and who were more than willing to pay for them, with the after years of that disease, remorse and reek of ill-fame in which “the name of the wicked rots.”

Whatever they might choose to do with their knowledge, the fact remained that the younger Dakshas knew that they, by inheritance, were rooted in different purposes and back-history than such as this, which reveals itself in these forms of faith-breaking, love-outraging, humanity-destroying bewilderments. So when this other kind of girls and boys, with their mothers and fathers flying around in society’s whirligig, flitted about them, the Dakshas thought steadily on the truth as they knew it; and “hearing for themselves, then spoke,” thus giving their companions a chance to catch on at any point of spiritual contact which they found available.

So the roots of Ethelbert Daksha’s life had gathered force and fibre in wisdom religions known in ancient America, Europe, Asia and Africa; and the might of this force was now annealed in her nature, 8and was forming into a unified strength of character, which to the ignorant seemed like a thing of very different quality.

Reginald Grove altogether misunderstood Ethel when first they met; for he did not so much as know that there were girls in the world with character-roots so deep and far-reaching. There were two things he recognized at sight, but character was not one. He knew money when he saw it, and he thought he knew poverty, too. His father belonged to the class of people who laugh at “blood,” and worship money. His blood was made up of such things as a man who lays the reins on the neck of his impulses can get into his veins, if in his early days his father strikes a “money lead” and he “a society life”; but then he had a mother, too, and there came in the difference.

Since he was seventeen years old Reginald had bought all the high-priced things that our fast civilization has to offer in exchange for “soul,” and now the ashes of that past were beginning to grit between his teeth; for he had a sweet memory of peace, purity and of an harmonious-purpose which glinted across his mind angelically as the remains of what had been his baby guesses at real manhood. But this dream, and the sainted mother who had inspired it, had both been devastated by the ignorant animalism of the elder Grove. So when the mother-spirit was released from earth’s control, little Regie’s waiting eyes turned to his father; and watching, he perceived that his father’s shrewd bargaining instincts resulted in increased wealth, which made it possible for him to sow a big crop of gilded misery, and still to pay his son’s bills, while he did likewise; and that doing all this he was yet flattered as a millionaire. So you see, beloved as was his mother’s memory and distinct as had been her teachings to his baby mind, they

became but “woman’s notions” when contradicted by his father’s practices, and by the licensing laws of paternal government which assure young men they may sin freely, and yet be wealthy and wise; and healthy, too, if nostrums will make them so.

For a time Reginald believed this, seeing the nation’s fathers had by 9license laws practically declared it. And as the wisdom of the nation’s mothers had been placed under silence as deep as the grave, “no cause or impediment being shown to forbid the banns” between his soul and corruption, he rushed on in the paths prepared for feet like his. But lately he did not feel very healthy; and as for his wealth, he feared that was getting a bit rickety, and his wisdom was hardly at par.

So these were Reginald’s character “roots.” But it was the one little radical, or true-life fibre, which vibrated with a thrill when he first met Ethelbert Daksha. At the instant, it seemed to him as though the mirage which ever floated up from the fens of his unrecorded life, was swept away by a breath from over the jasper walls of the eternal city. That curious look out of Ethelbert’s eyes, so all-comprehending, pitiful and yet unmoved, held him, as his mother’s eyes had always done in the past; and he had not a word to say. He felt as such men feel when conscious of the moral distance between their private lives and the lives of sweet girl acquaintances.

As usual he waited for Ethelbert to speak; but as is not usual she, recognizing his moral state, did not come down and hunt round for something to say on its level. “The great gulf fixed,” was fixed. She did not try to cross it; so she escaped falling and floundering therein, for her pains. Ethelbert believed not in self-abnegation, but in self-expression. She believed it right to stand squarely on her own fair heights; that from there, with the hand next her heart placed in Jehovah’s, she could give her brain-inspired right hand to brother man and then lift!

“An Englishman dares be silent,” they say, and Ethelbert’s English quality was in the ascendant, when Reginald looked at her, wishing to know if those mother-eyes were backed by a brain filled with mother wit and wisdom. He met silence, and went away from that party with an unsatisfied hunger in his soul, which proved that that abused thing was not dead yet.

After that they met casually often; and Ethelbert, who “pondered 10all these things in her heart,” which are brought by “ministering spirits to those who are heirs of salvation,” knew Reginald better than as if they for years had talked much self-disguising trash together.

One summer afternoon when she was sitting on the balcony of the Daksha home he passed and raised his hat, and she bowed in return, with the thought in mind and eyes, “that man is inherently a good man.” And he saw it, and halted, and then with direct purpose, crossed the street and seated himself on the step, asking no permission.

“Miss Ethelbert, you always make me wish I were a boy five years old,” he said.

“I wish you were,” said Ethelbert.

This was sudden for Reginald; for though he was willing to recognize the failure he had made of manhood, Ethelbert’s businesslike way of accepting the idea was not flattering, and he was used to flattery.

“Why do you wish it?” he said after knocking his teeth, not agreeably, with the head of his cane and gazing at her combatively.

“So that you could cleave to the right. You are so old in your habits now, so undeveloped in the practice of judgment, and—oh, there is Bertha! Come right up here, Bertha. I was sitting here looking for you. Yes, you can have the newly cut lawn grass for your rabbits; but I want to see you first. I have saved the papers for you. Now, Mr. Grove, this is one of my friends, Bertha Gemacht; and Bertha, this is one of my friends, Reginald Grove.”

Reginald had risen to his feet under this speech, the words of which are only recorded. The cool, helpful look which she turned on him in view of his moral mismanagement, and which was not in the least altered as she looked from him to Bertha, and from Bertha to him again, was as new to him as it was irritating and fascinating. For Bertha was to him a hard-looking woman as she laid her sack for holding the grass, down, and turned on him a look cowed, yet angry, and with another mixed expression indescribable.

There was a little odor of whiskey about Bertha, and so there was 11about Reginald; and Ethelbert’s senses were as keen in one case as they were in the other; but she noticed that while Bertha seemed not in the least surprised that such a man as Reginald was found in a nice lady’s company, he was plainly indignant at seeing Bertha there; and that he watched them with disapprobation while they leaned over an illustrated paper together.

“Now I would like you to read an account of the two women who took a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres; and for seven years worked it so well and wisely that they now have a delightful, valuable home, and have since added three other women to the household: women who had lost hope of happiness and honor, but are now becoming healthy and self-sustained by work,—honest, skillful work. Of course one has to have health in order to have nice clear brains.”

“O Bertha, did you read and understand the health journal I loaned you? And did you think, after all the facts I told you, that you would better still sometimes use whiskey and—”

“Indeed, Miss Daksha, I have not taken more than—”

“Bertha,” Ethelbert interrupted. “Of course you will drink whiskey all you choose. I was only wishing you would choose not to drink it at all. Do you think rum drinking makes people healthy, wealthy and wise?”

Bertha’s face had lighted up under the idea which had lately been brought to her by this friend, whose unvarying recognition of Bertha’s individuality, and of the fact that she could make of herself just such a woman as she chose to make, had opened a world of dignified possibilities before her. Her large eyes, which often had the look of an angry animal brought to bay, had now in them a puzzled, wondering look, full of startled expectancy.

“Do you think I am healthier than you are?” said Ethelbert. Bertha nodded eagerly. “Would you wish to be like me?”

“O Gott in Himmel! Would I not!” said Bertha, and she threw her old apron over her head; and the wild conflict within broke forth in a tempest of sobs.

12Reginald sat down on the steps with his back to them both, and looked out on the evening clouds; and Ethelbert, in that sharp fellowship with suffering which is part of the price paid by those whose soul-sight gives them redemptive power with the tempted and fallen, steadied herself under the pangs of the sudden remorse that had struck the heart of the man and of the woman anear.

“There Bertha, now listen,” said she presently. “Let us, you and I, not do anything which will in the least harm the pure river of life, which, flowing through our veins, comes first from Jehovah, the fount of all life. See, Bertha!”

The girl uncovered her eyes, and awe-struck, looked at Ethelbert as she bared her arm and showed the blue tracery there, and on her hand, adding: “See, the beautiful stream in the little river-beds here, flows on, and up through this big artery in my throat, over my brain. And Bertha,” she paused, and with a dramatic but perfectly unaffected gesture full of regnant poise, and with a light in her eyes never seen on sea or land, she said again, slowly: “And, Bertha, brain rules here! What the spirit wills, this body must. So my brain has commanded that nothing shall be put into my blood which shall send poisonous elements maddeningly up to the throne of reason. But Bertha, if you think it is wise to do as you do, you may have some good cause for it, that I know nothing about. Tell me, am I mistaken in my ideas? Shall I go with you where you went this afternoon, and put into my veins all that you did into yours?”

“Gott bewahr! Oh, don’t say, don’t think of such things of your veins!” cried Bertha, almost throwing her arms round Ethelbert.

Reginald sprang to his feet and looked at poor Bertha with a loathful vindictiveness hard to describe.

“Is it too bad for me? Oh, then, it must be too bad for you,” said Ethelbert, with a pain intense in her tone. “You cut me to the heart just so when you violate your blood with things of horror. It is good German blood, and part of it flows in my veins, and all of it came from 13the great Fountain of Life who ‘made of one blood all nations of the earth,’ and who, in this, our beloved country, is gathering up all the nations of the earth into the life of this Republic’s inheritance. It is for women to secure to our nation a heritage better than golden crowns.”

Ethelbert’s grey eyes were fixed on a floating cloud, and, absorbing into herself the doings of the beautiful world above, she broke up her reverie; and turning, looked at Bertha, saying explainingly: “You see yourself, Bertha, I mean that my parents and grandparents might have forgotten that I was coming to inherit their blood and their brains, and might have carelessly filled the fountain of their life with poison-loving elements. Now, if they had done so, what do you suppose I would now do about it myself?”

“I’ll tell you what you would do about it,” interrupted Reginald. “You would have thought it the best blood in the land, madame, and would have scorned that girl as much as you scorn me, to whom you are reading this lesson over her shoulders. She don’t understand a word you’ve said; but do you think I am a fool?”

“No,” said Ethelbert simply.

Bertha looked after him as he walked off a few steps.

“Is that man your friend?” she said sharply. “I understand not all your speaking words, but full well I know your wisdom in the thought of it, and well I know that the body is as a beast if the spirit shall not command what it will do. He thinks me a fool—too much fool to talk your wisdom-words. I are not fool. I choose this day. This head shall say, ‘No more of beer and oder tings to my body. It has said so before this time, many days, but now, the body must!’ Now then, I, Bertha, ask you: Do you think I am a fool?”

“No,” said Ethelbert.

“Well, I shall be a fool if I steals away my brains some more.”

“I think you will never do that any more. Brain force can be lost and wasted; or it can be treasured up, englobed delightsomely. Now, 14Bertha, take this rosebud and try to live as healthfully and sweet as roses do. Bertha, gather up your grass for the rabbits, and make the little things clean and happy, and then you can read your papers tonight, and come and get some more. Here is a pencil, so you can mark any little place you don’t quite understand, and I will tell you about it. Good-night.”

“Good-night, Miss Daksha,” said Bertha, looking back enviously at Reginald, who stood striking the rosebush with his cane, and not yet dismissed.

“You can’t put that rose together again,” said Ethelbert.

“Who cares?” said he roughly. For, as Ethelbert would not flatter him, he unconsciously proposed not to flatter her. You see he had felt full of the ashes of the past; and those ashes, like a volatile alkali, needed only an acid admixture to ensure a sudden fermentation of soul. The truths which had seemed so sweet to Bertha had been acid to him, and a foam of wrath was choking him as he sputtered: “Who cares?”

“That is the question,” said Ethelbert, gathering up the shattered rose: “Who cares?”