LOOKING BACKWARD

From 2000 to 1887

by

Edward Bellamy

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Historical Section Shawmut College, Boston, December 26, 2000

Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century, enjoyingthe blessings of a social order at once so simple and logical that itseems but the triumph of common sense, it is no doubt difficult forthose whose studies have not been largely historical to realize thatthe present organization of society is, in its completeness, less thana century old. No historical fact is, however, better established thanthat till nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was the generalbelief that the ancient industrial system, with all its shocking socialconsequences, was destined to last, with possibly a little patching, tothe end of time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does it seem thatso prodigious a moral and material transformation as has taken placesince then could have been accomplished in so brief an interval! Thereadiness with which men accustom themselves, as matters of course, toimprovements in their condition, which, when anticipated, seemed toleave nothing more to be desired, could not be more strikinglyillustrated. What reflection could be better calculated to moderate theenthusiasm of reformers who count for their reward on the livelygratitude of future ages!

The object of this volume is to assist persons who, while desiring togain a more definite idea of the social contrasts between thenineteenth and twentieth centuries, are daunted by the formal aspect ofthe histories which treat the subject. Warned by a teacher's experiencethat learning is accounted a weariness to the flesh, the author hassought to alleviate the instructive quality of the book by casting itin the form of a romantic narrative, which he would be glad to fancynot wholly devoid of interest on its own account. 

The reader, to whom modern social institutions and their underlyingprinciples are matters of course, may at times find Dr. Leete'sexplanations of them rather trite--but it must be remembered that toDr. Leete's guest they were not matters of course, and that this bookis written for the express purpose of inducing the reader to forget forthe nonce that they are so to him. One word more. The almost universaltheme of the writers and orators who have celebrated this bimillennialepoch has been the future rather than the past, not the advance thathas been made, but the progress that shall be made, ever onward andupward, till the race shall achieve its ineffable destiny. This iswell, wholly well, but it seems to me that nowhere can we find moresolid ground for daring anticipations of human development during thenext one thousand years, than by "Looking Backward" upon the progressof the last one hundred. 

That this volume may be so fortunate as to find readers whose interestin the subject shall incline them to overlook the deficiencies of thetreatment is the hope in which the author steps aside and leaves Mr. Julian West to speak for himself. 

JTABLE 5 28 1

Chapter 1

I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857. "What!"you say, "eighteen fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He means nineteenfifty-seven, of course. " I beg pardon, but there is no mistake. It wasabout four in the afternoon of December the 26th, one day afterChristmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I first breathed the eastwind of Boston, which, I assure the reader, was at that remote periodmarked by the same penetrating quality characterizing it in the presentyear of grace, 2000. 

These statements seem so absurd on their face, especially when I addthat I am a young man apparently of about thirty years of age, that noperson can be blamed for refusing to read another word of what promisesto be a mere imposition upon his credulity. Nevertheless I earnestlyassure the reader that no imposition is intended, and will undertake, if he shall follow me a few pages, to entirely convince him of this. IfI may, then, provisionally assume, with the pledge of justifying theassumption, that I know better than the reader when I was born, I willgo on with my narrative. As every schoolboy knows, in the latter partof the nineteenth century the civilization of to-day, or anything likeit, did not exist, although the elements which were to develop it werealready in ferment. Nothing had, however, occurred to modify theimmemorial division of society into the four classes, or nations, asthey may be more fitly called, since the differences between them werefar greater than those between any nations nowadays, of the rich andthe poor, the educated and the ignorant. I myself was rich and alsoeducated, and possessed, therefore, all the elements of happinessenjoyed by the most fortunate in that age. Living in luxury, andoccupied only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements oflife, I derived the means of my support from the labor of others, rendering no sort of service in return. My parents and grand-parentshad lived in the same way, and I expected that my descendants, if I hadany, would enjoy a like easy existence. 

But how could I live without service to the world? you ask. Why shouldthe world have supported in utter idleness one who was able to renderservice? The answer is that my great-grandfather had accumulated a sumof money on which his descendants had ever since lived. The sum, youwill naturally infer, must have been very large not to have beenexhausted in supporting three generations in idleness. This, however, was not the fact. The sum had been originally by no means large. Itwas, in fact, much larger now that three generations had been supportedupon it in idleness, than it was at first. This mystery of use withoutconsumption, of warmth without combustion, seems like magic, but wasmerely an ingenious application of the art now happily lost but carriedto great perfection by your ancestors, of shifting the burden of one'ssupport on the shoulders of others. The man who had accomplished this, and it was the end all sought, was said to live on the income of hisinvestments. To explain at this point how the ancient methods ofindustry made this possible would delay us too much. I shall only stopnow to say that interest on investments was a species of tax inperpetuity upon the product of those engaged in industry which a personpossessing or inheriting money was able to levy. It must not besupposed that an arrangement which seems so unnatural and preposterousaccording to modern notions was never criticized by your ancestors. Ithad been the effort of lawgivers and prophets from the earliest ages toabolish interest, or at least to limit it to the smallest possiblerate. All these efforts had, however, failed, as they necessarily mustso long as the ancient social organizations prevailed. At the time ofwhich I write, the latter part of the nineteenth century, governmentshad generally given up trying to regulate the subject at all. 

By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of theway people lived together in those days, and especially of therelations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps I cannot dobetter than to compare society as it then was to a prodigious coachwhich the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomelyalong a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permittedno lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite thedifficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the topwas covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepestascents. These seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well upout of the dust, their occupants could enjoy the scenery at theirleisure, or critically discuss the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for themwas keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seaton the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him. By therule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, but onthe other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any timebe wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were veryinsecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slippingout of them and falling to the ground, where they were instantlycompelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag the coach on whichthey had before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as aterrible misfortune to lose one's seat, and the apprehension that thismight happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon thehappiness of those who rode. 

But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their veryluxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of theirbrothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge that their ownweight added to their toil? Had they no compassion for fellow beingsfrom whom fortune only distinguished them? Oh, yes; commiseration wasfrequently expressed by those who rode for those who had to pull thecoach, especially when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, asit was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep hill. At suchtimes, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized leaping andplunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the many who fainted atthe rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very distressingspectacle, which often called forth highly creditable displays offeeling on the top of the coach. At such times the passengers wouldcall down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them topatience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation in anotherworld for the hardness of their lot, while others contributed to buysalves and liniments for the crippled and injured. It was agreed thatit was a great pity that the coach should be so hard to pull, and therewas a sense of general relief when the specially bad piece of road wasgotten over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of theteam, for there was always some danger at these bad places of a generaloverturn in which all would lose their seats. 

It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle ofthe misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers'sense of the value of their seats upon the coach, and to cause them tohold on to them more desperately than before. If the passengers couldonly have felt assured that neither they nor their friends would everfall from the top, it is probable that, beyond contributing to thefunds for liniments and bandages, they would have troubled themselvesextremely little about those who dragged the coach. 

I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women of thetwentieth century an incredible inhumanity, but there are two facts, both very curious, which partly explain it. In the first place, it wasfirmly and sincerely believed that there was no other way in whichSociety could get along, except the many pulled at the rope and the fewrode, and not only this, but that no very radical improvement even waspossible, either in the harness, the coach, the roadway, or thedistribution of the toil. It had always been as it was, and it alwayswould be so. It was a pity, but it could not be helped, and philosophyforbade wasting compassion on what was beyond remedy. 

The other fact is yet more curious, consisting in a singularhallucination which those on the top of the coach generally shared, that they were not exactly like their brothers and sisters who pulledat the rope, but of finer clay, in some way belonging to a higher orderof beings who might justly expect to be drawn. This seemsunaccountable, but, as I once rode on this very coach and shared thatvery hallucination, I ought to be believed. The strangest thing aboutthe hallucination was that those who had but just climbed up from theground, before they had outgrown the marks of the rope upon theirhands, began to fall under its influence. As for those whose parentsand grand-parents before them had been so fortunate as to keep theirseats on the top, the conviction they cherished of the essentialdifference between their sort of humanity and the common article wasabsolute. The effect of such a delusion in moderating fellow feelingfor the sufferings of the mass of men into a distant and philosophicalcompassion is obvious. To it I refer as the only extenuation I canoffer for the indifference which, at the period I write of, marked myown attitude toward the misery of my brothers. 

In 1887 I came to my thirtieth year. Although still unmarried, I wasengaged to wed Edith Bartlett. She, like myself, rode on the top of thecoach. That is to say, not to encumber ourselves further with anillustration which has, I hope, served its purpose of giving the readersome general impression of how we lived then, her family was wealthy. In that age, when money alone commanded all that was agreeable andrefined in life, it was enough for a woman to be rich to have suitors;but Edith Bartlett was beautiful and graceful also. 

My lady readers, I am aware, will protest at this. "Handsome she mighthave been, " I hear them saying, "but graceful never, in the costumeswhich were the fashion at that period, when the head covering was adizzy structure a foot tall, and the almost incredible extension of theskirt behind by means of artificial contrivances more thoroughlydehumanized the form than any former device of dressmakers. Fancy anyone graceful in such a costume!" The point is certainly well taken, andI can only reply that while the ladies of the twentieth century arelovely demonstrations of the effect of appropriate drapery in accentingfeminine graces, my recollection of their great-grandmothers enables meto maintain that no deformity of costume can wholly disguise them. 

Our marriage only waited on the completion of the house which I wasbuilding for our occupancy in one of the most desirable parts of thecity, that is to say, a part chiefly inhabited by the rich. For it mustbe understood that the comparative desirability of different parts ofBoston for residence depended then, not on natural features, but on thecharacter of the neighboring population. Each class or nation lived byitself, in quarters of its own. A rich man living among the poor, aneducated man among the uneducated, was like one living in isolationamong a jealous and alien race. When the house had been begun, itscompletion by the winter of 1886 had been expected. The spring of thefollowing year found it, however, yet incomplete, and my marriage stilla thing of the future. The cause of a delay calculated to beparticularly exasperating to an ardent lover was a series of strikes, that is to say, concerted refusals to work on the part of thebrick-layers, masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and other tradesconcerned in house building. What the specific causes of these strikeswere I do not remember. Strikes had become so common at that periodthat people had ceased to inquire into their particular grounds. In onedepartment of industry or another, they had been nearly incessant eversince the great business crisis of 1873. In fact it had come to be theexceptional thing to see any class of laborers pursue their avocationsteadily for more than a few months at a time. 

The reader who observes the dates alluded to will of course recognizein these disturbances of industry the first and incoherent phase of thegreat movement which ended in the establishment of the modernindustrial system with all its social consequences. This is all soplain in the retrospect that a child can understand it, but not beingprophets, we of that day had no clear idea what was happening to us. What we did see was that industrially the country was in a very queerway. The relation between the workingman and the employer, betweenlabor and capital, appeared in some unaccountable manner to have becomedislocated. The working classes had quite suddenly and very generallybecome infected with a profound discontent with their condition, and anidea that it could be greatly bettered if they only knew how to goabout it. On every side, with one accord, they preferred demands forhigher pay, shorter hours, better dwellings, better educationaladvantages, and a share in the refinements and luxuries of life, demands which it was impossible to see the way to granting unless theworld were to become a great deal richer than it then was. Though theyknew something of what they wanted, they knew nothing of how toaccomplish it, and the eager enthusiasm with which they thronged aboutany one who seemed likely to give them any light on the subject lentsudden reputation to many would-be leaders, some of whom had littleenough light to give. However chimerical the aspirations of thelaboring classes might be deemed, the devotion with which theysupported one another in the strikes, which were their chief weapon, and the sacrifices which they underwent to carry them out left no doubtof their dead earnestness. 

As to the final outcome of the labor troubles, which was the phrase bywhich the movement I have described was most commonly referred to, theopinions of the people of my class differed according to individualtemperament. The sanguine argued very forcibly that it was in the verynature of things impossible that the new hopes of the workingmen couldbe satisfied, simply because the world had not the wherewithal tosatisfy them. It was only because the masses worked very hard and livedon short commons that the race did not starve outright, and noconsiderable improvement in their condition was possible while theworld, as a whole, remained so poor. It was not the capitalists whomthe laboring men were contending with, these maintained, but theiron-bound environment of humanity, and it was merely a question of thethickness of their skulls when they would discover the fact and make uptheir minds to endure what they could not cure. 

The less sanguine admitted all this. Of course the workingmen'saspirations were impossible of fulfillment for natural reasons, butthere were grounds to fear that they would not discover this fact untilthey had made a sad mess of society. They had the votes and the powerto do so if they pleased, and their leaders meant they should. Some ofthese desponding observers went so far as to predict an impendingsocial cataclysm. Humanity, they argued, having climbed to the topround of the ladder of civilization, was about to take a header intochaos, after which it would doubtless pick itself up, turn round, andbegin to climb again. Repeated experiences of this sort in historic andprehistoric times possibly accounted for the puzzling bumps on thehuman cranium. Human history, like all great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning. The idea of indefinite progressin a right line was a chimera of the imagination, with no analogue innature. The parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet better illustrationof the career of humanity. Tending upward and sunward from the aphelionof barbarism, the race attained the perihelion of civilization only toplunge downward once more to its nether goal in the regions of chaos. 

This, of course, was an extreme opinion, but I remember serious menamong my acquaintances who, in discussing the signs of the times, adopted a very similar tone. It was no doubt the common opinion ofthoughtful men that society was approaching a critical period whichmight result in great changes. The labor troubles, their causes, course, and cure, took lead of all other topics in the public prints, and in serious conversation. 

The nervous tension of the public mind could not have been morestrikingly illustrated than it was by the alarm resulting from the talkof a small band of men who called themselves anarchists, and proposedto terrify the American people into adopting their ideas by threats ofviolence, as if a mighty nation which had but just put down a rebellionof half its own numbers, in order to maintain its political system, were likely to adopt a new social system out of fear. 

As one of the wealthy, with a large stake in the existing order ofthings, I naturally shared the apprehensions of my class. Theparticular grievance I had against the working classes at the time ofwhich I write, on account of the effect of their strikes in postponingmy wedded bliss, no doubt lent a special animosity to my feeling towardthem. 

Chapter 2

The thirtieth day of May, 1887, fell on a Monday. It was one of theannual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the nineteenthcentury, being set apart under the name of Decoration Day, for doinghonor to the memory of the soldiers of the North who took part in thewar for the preservation of the union of the States. The survivors ofthe war, escorted by military and civic processions and bands of music, were wont on this occasion to visit the cemeteries and lay wreaths offlowers upon the graves of their dead comrades, the ceremony being avery solemn and touching one. The eldest brother of Edith Bartlett hadfallen in the war, and on Decoration Day the family was in the habit ofmaking a visit to Mount Auburn, where he lay. 

I had asked permission to make one of the party, and, on our return tothe city at nightfall, remained to dine with the family of mybetrothed. In the drawing-room, after dinner, I picked up an eveningpaper and read of a fresh strike in the building trades, which wouldprobably still further delay the completion of my unlucky house. Iremember distinctly how exasperated I was at this, and theobjurgations, as forcible as the presence of the ladies permitted, which I lavished upon workmen in general, and these strikers inparticular. I had abundant sympathy from those about me, and theremarks made in the desultory conversation which followed, upon theunprincipled conduct of the labor agitators, were calculated to makethose gentlemen's ears tingle. It was agreed that affairs were goingfrom bad to worse very fast, and that there was no telling what weshould come to soon. "The worst of it, " I remember Mrs. Bartlett'ssaying, "is that the working classes all over the world seem to begoing crazy at once. In Europe it is far worse even than here. I'm sureI should not dare to live there at all. I asked Mr. Bartlett the otherday where we should emigrate to if all the terrible things took placewhich those socialists threaten. He said he did not know any place nowwhere society could be called stable except Greenland, Patagonia, andthe Chinese Empire. " "Those Chinamen knew what they were about, "somebody added, "when they refused to let in our western civilization. They knew what it would lead to better than we did. They saw it wasnothing but dynamite in disguise. "

After this, I remember drawing Edith apart and trying to persuade herthat it would be better to be married at once without waiting for thecompletion of the house, spending the time in travel till our home wasready for us. She was remarkably handsome that evening, the mourningcostume that she wore in recognition of the day setting off to greatadvantage the purity of her complexion. I can see her even now with mymind's eye just as she looked that night. When I took my leave shefollowed me into the hall and I kissed her good-by as usual. There wasno circumstance out of the common to distinguish this parting fromprevious occasions when we had bade each other good-by for a night or aday. There was absolutely no premonition in my mind, or I am sure inhers, that this was more than an ordinary separation. 

Ah, well!

The hour at which I had left my betrothed was a rather early one for alover, but the fact was no reflection on my devotion. I was a confirmedsufferer from insomnia, and although otherwise perfectly well had beencompletely fagged out that day, from having slept scarcely at all thetwo previous nights. Edith knew this and had insisted on sending mehome by nine o'clock, with strict orders to go to bed at once. 

The house in which I lived had been occupied by three generations ofthe family of which I was the only living representative in the directline. It was a large, ancient wooden mansion, very elegant in anold-fashioned way within, but situated in a quarter that had long sincebecome undesirable for residence, from its invasion by tenement housesand manufactories. It was not a house to which I could think ofbringing a bride, much less so dainty a one as Edith Bartlett. I hadadvertised it for sale, and meanwhile merely used it for sleepingpurposes, dining at my club. One servant, a faithful colored man by thename of Sawyer, lived with me and attended to my few wants. One featureof the house I expected to miss greatly when I should leave it, andthis was the sleeping chamber which I had built under the foundations. I could not have slept in the city at all, with its never ceasingnightly noises, if I had been obliged to use an upstairs chamber. Butto this subterranean room no murmur from the upper world everpenetrated. When I had entered it and closed the door, I was surroundedby the silence of the tomb. In order to prevent the dampness of thesubsoil from penetrating the chamber, the walls had been laid inhydraulic cement and were very thick, and the floor was likewiseprotected. In order that the room might serve also as a vault equallyproof against violence and flames, for the storage of valuables, I hadroofed it with stone slabs hermetically sealed, and the outer door wasof iron with a thick coating of asbestos. A small pipe, communicatingwith a wind-mill on the top of the house, insured the renewal of air. 

It might seem that the tenant of such a chamber ought to be able tocommand slumber, but it was rare that I slept well, even there, twonights in succession. So accustomed was I to wakefulness that I mindedlittle the loss of one night's rest. A second night, however, spent inmy reading chair instead of my bed, tired me out, and I never allowedmyself to go longer than that without slumber, from fear of nervousdisorder. From this statement it will be inferred that I had at mycommand some artificial means for inducing sleep in the last resort, and so in fact I had. If after two sleepless nights I found myself onthe approach of the third without sensations of drowsiness, I called inDr. Pillsbury. 

He was a doctor by courtesy only, what was called in those days an"irregular" or "quack" doctor. He called himself a "Professor of AnimalMagnetism. " I had come across him in the course of some amateurinvestigations into the phenomena of animal magnetism. I don't think heknew anything about medicine, but he was certainly a remarkablemesmerist. It was for the purpose of being put to sleep by hismanipulations that I used to send for him when I found a third night ofsleeplessness impending. Let my nervous excitement or mentalpreoccupation be however great, Dr. Pillsbury never failed, after ashort time, to leave me in a deep slumber, which continued till I wasaroused by a reversal of the mesmerizing process. The process forawaking the sleeper was much simpler than that for putting him tosleep, and for convenience I had made Dr Pillsbury teach Sawyer how todo it. 

My faithful servant alone knew for what purpose Dr. Pillsbury visitedme, or that he did so at all. Of course, when Edith became my wife Ishould have to tell her my secrets. I had not hitherto told her this, because there was unquestionably a slight risk in the mesmeric sleep, and I knew she would set her face against my practice. The risk, ofcourse, was that it might become too profound and pass into a trancebeyond the mesmerizer's power to break, ending in death. Repeatedexperiments had fully convinced me that the risk was next to nothing ifreasonable precautions were exercised, and of this I hoped, thoughdoubtingly, to convince Edith. I went directly home after leaving her, and at once sent Sawyer to fetch Dr. Pillsbury. Meanwhile I sought mysubterranean sleeping chamber, and exchanging my costume for acomfortable dressing-gown, sat down to read the letters by the eveningmail which Sawyer had laid on my reading table. 

One of them was from the builder of my new house, and confirmed what Ihad inferred from the newspaper item. The new strikes, he said, hadpostponed indefinitely the completion of the contract, as neithermasters nor workmen would concede the point at issue without a longstruggle. Caligula wished that the Roman people had but one neck thathe might cut it off, and as I read this letter I am afraid that for amoment I was capable of wishing the same thing concerning the laboringclasses of America. The return of Sawyer with the doctor interrupted mygloomy meditations. 

It appeared that he had with difficulty been able to secure hisservices, as he was preparing to leave the city that very night. Thedoctor explained that since he had seen me last he had learned of afine professional opening in a distant city, and decided to take promptadvantage of it. On my asking, in some panic, what I was to do for someone to put me to sleep, he gave me the names of several mesmerizers inBoston who, he averred, had quite as great powers as he. 

Somewhat relieved on this point, I instructed Sawyer to rouse me atnine o'clock next morning, and, lying down on the bed in mydressing-gown, assumed a comfortable attitude, and surrendered myselfto the manipulations of the mesmerizer. Owing, perhaps, to my unusuallynervous state, I was slower than common in losing consciousness, but atlength a delicious drowsiness stole over me. 

Chapter 3

"He is going to open his eyes. He had better see but one of us atfirst. "

"Promise me, then, that you will not tell him. "

The first voice was a man's, the second a woman's, and both spoke inwhispers. 

"I will see how he seems, " replied the man. 

"No, no, promise me, " persisted the other. 

"Let her have her way, " whispered a third voice, also a woman. 

"Well, well, I promise, then, " answered the man. "Quick, go! He iscoming out of it. "

There was a rustle of garments and I opened my eyes. A fine looking manof perhaps sixty was bending over me, an expression of much benevolencemingled with great curiosity upon his features. He was an utterstranger. I raised myself on an elbow and looked around. The room wasempty. I certainly had never been in it before, or one furnished likeit. I looked back at my companion. He smiled. 

"How do you feel?" he inquired. 

"Where am I?" I demanded. 

"You are in my house, " was the reply. 

"How came I here?"

"We will talk about that when you are stronger. Meanwhile, I beg youwill feel no anxiety. You are among friends and in good hands. How doyou feel?"

"A bit queerly, " I replied, "but I am well, I suppose. Will you tell mehow I came to be indebted to your hospitality? What has happened to me?How came I here? It was in my own house that I went to sleep. "

"There will be time enough for explanations later, " my unknown hostreplied, with a reassuring smile. "It will be better to avoid agitatingtalk until you are a little more yourself. Will you oblige me by takinga couple of swallows of this mixture? It will do you good. I am aphysician. "

I repelled the glass with my hand and sat up on the couch, althoughwith an effort, for my head was strangely light. 

"I insist upon knowing at once where I am and what you have been doingwith me, " I said. 

"My dear sir, " responded my companion, "let me beg that you will notagitate yourself. I would rather you did not insist upon explanationsso soon, but if you do, I will try to satisfy you, provided you willfirst take this draught, which will strengthen you somewhat. "

I thereupon drank what he offered me. Then he said, "It is not sosimple a matter as you evidently suppose to tell you how you came here. You can tell me quite as much on that point as I can tell you. You havejust been roused from a deep sleep, or, more properly, trance. So muchI can tell you. You say you were in your own house when you fell intothat sleep. May I ask you when that was?"

"When?" I replied, "when? Why, last evening, of course, at about teno'clock. I left my man Sawyer orders to call me at nine o'clock. Whathas become of Sawyer?"

"I can't precisely tell you that, " replied my companion, regarding mewith a curious expression, "but I am sure that he is excusable for notbeing here. And now can you tell me a little more explicitly when itwas that you fell into that sleep, the date, I mean?"

"Why, last night, of course; I said so, didn't I? that is, unless Ihave overslept an entire day. Great heavens! that cannot be possible;and yet I have an odd sensation of having slept a long time. It wasDecoration Day that I went to sleep. "

"Decoration Day?"

"Yes, Monday, the 30th. "

"Pardon me, the 30th of what?"

"Why, of this month, of course, unless I have slept into June, but thatcan't be. "

"This month is September. "

"September! You don't mean that I've slept since May! God in heaven!Why, it is incredible. "

"We shall see, " replied my companion; "you say that it was May 30thwhen you went to sleep?"

"Yes. "

"May I ask of what year?"

I stared blankly at him, incapable of speech, for some moments. 

"Of what year?" I feebly echoed at last. 

"Yes, of what year, if you please? After you have told me that I shallbe able to tell you how long you have slept. "

"It was the year 1887, " I said. 

My companion insisted that I should take another draught from theglass, and felt my pulse. 

"My dear sir, " he said, "your manner indicates that you are a man ofculture, which I am aware was by no means the matter of course in yourday it now is. No doubt, then, you have yourself made the observationthat nothing in this world can be truly said to be more wonderful thananything else. The causes of all phenomena are equally adequate, andthe results equally matters of course. That you should be startled bywhat I shall tell you is to be expected; but I am confident that youwill not permit it to affect your equanimity unduly. Your appearance isthat of a young man of barely thirty, and your bodily condition seemsnot greatly different from that of one just roused from a somewhat toolong and profound sleep, and yet this is the tenth day of September inthe year 2000, and you have slept exactly one hundred and thirteenyears, three months, and eleven days. "

Feeling partially dazed, I drank a cup of some sort of broth at mycompanion's suggestion, and, immediately afterward becoming verydrowsy, went off into a deep sleep. 

When I awoke it was broad daylight in the room, which had been lightedartificially when I was awake before. My mysterious host was sittingnear. He was not looking at me when I opened my eyes, and I had a goodopportunity to study him and meditate upon my extraordinary situation, before he observed that I was awake. My giddiness was all gone, and mymind perfectly clear. The story that I had been asleep one hundred andthirteen years, which, in my former weak and bewildered condition, Ihad accepted without question, recurred to me now only to be rejectedas a preposterous attempt at an imposture, the motive of which it wasimpossible remotely to surmise. 

Something extraordinary had certainly happened to account for my wakingup in this strange house with this unknown companion, but my fancy wasutterly impotent to suggest more than the wildest guess as to what thatsomething might have been. Could it be that I was the victim of somesort of conspiracy? It looked so, certainly; and yet, if humanlineaments ever gave true evidence, it was certain that this man by myside, with a face so refined and ingenuous, was no party to any schemeof crime or outrage. Then it occurred to me to question if I might notbe the butt of some elaborate practical joke on the part of friends whohad somehow learned the secret of my underground chamber and taken thismeans of impressing me with the peril of mesmeric experiments. Therewere great difficulties in the way of this theory; Sawyer would neverhave betrayed me, nor had I any friends at all likely to undertake suchan enterprise; nevertheless the supposition that I was the victim of apractical joke seemed on the whole the only one tenable. Half expectingto catch a glimpse of some familiar face grinning from behind a chairor curtain, I looked carefully about the room. When my eyes next restedon my companion, he was looking at me. 

"You have had a fine nap of twelve hours, " he said briskly, "and I cansee that it has done you good. You look much better. Your color is goodand your eyes are bright. How do you feel?"

"I never felt better, " I said, sitting up. 

"You remember your first waking, no doubt, " he pursued, "and yoursurprise when I told you how long you had been asleep?"

"You said, I believe, that I had slept one hundred and thirteen years. "

"Exactly. "

"You will admit, " I said, with an ironical smile, "that the story wasrather an improbable one. "

"Extraordinary, I admit, " he responded, "but given the properconditions, not improbable nor inconsistent with what we know of thetrance state. When complete, as in your case, the vital functions areabsolutely suspended, and there is no waste of the tissues. No limitcan be set to the possible duration of a trance when the externalconditions protect the body from physical injury. This trance of yoursis indeed the longest of which there is any positive record, but thereis no known reason wherefore, had you not been discovered and had thechamber in which we found you continued intact, you might not haveremained in a state of suspended animation till, at the end ofindefinite ages, the gradual refrigeration of the earth had destroyedthe bodily tissues and set the spirit free. "

I had to admit that, if I were indeed the victim of a practical joke, its authors had chosen an admirable agent for carrying out theirimposition. The impressive and even eloquent manner of this man wouldhave lent dignity to an argument that the moon was made of cheese. Thesmile with which I had regarded him as he advanced his trancehypothesis did not appear to confuse him in the slightest degree. 

"Perhaps, " I said, "you will go on and favor me with some particularsas to the circumstances under which you discovered this chamber ofwhich you speak, and its contents. I enjoy good fiction. "

"In this case, " was the grave reply, "no fiction could be so strange asthe truth. You must know that these many years I have been cherishingthe idea of building a laboratory in the large garden beside thishouse, for the purpose of chemical experiments for which I have ataste. Last Thursday the excavation for the cellar was at last begun. It was completed by that night, and Friday the masons were to havecome. Thursday night we had a tremendous deluge of rain, and Fridaymorning I found my cellar a frog-pond and the walls quite washed down. My daughter, who had come out to view the disaster with me, called myattention to a corner of masonry laid bare by the crumbling away of oneof the walls. I cleared a little earth from it, and, finding that itseemed part of a large mass, determined to investigate it. The workmenI sent for unearthed an oblong vault some eight feet below the surface, and set in the corner of what had evidently been the foundation wallsof an ancient house. A layer of ashes and charcoal on the top of thevault showed that the house above had perished by fire. The vaultitself was perfectly intact, the cement being as good as when firstapplied. It had a door, but this we could not force, and found entranceby removing one of the flagstones which formed the roof. The air whichcame up was stagnant but pure, dry and not cold. Descending with alantern, I found myself in an apartment fitted up as a bedroom in thestyle of the nineteenth century. On the bed lay a young man. That hewas dead and must have been dead a century was of course to be takenfor granted; but the extraordinary state of preservation of the bodystruck me and the medical colleagues whom I had summoned withamazement. That the art of such embalming as this had ever been knownwe should not have believed, yet here seemed conclusive testimony thatour immediate ancestors had possessed it. My medical colleagues, whosecuriosity was highly excited, were at once for undertaking experimentsto test the nature of the process employed, but I withheld them. Mymotive in so doing, at least the only motive I now need speak of, wasthe recollection of something I once had read about the extent to whichyour contemporaries had cultivated the subject of animal magnetism. Ithad occurred to me as just conceivable that you might be in a trance, and that the secret of your bodily integrity after so long a time wasnot the craft of an embalmer, but life. So extremely fanciful did thisidea seem, even to me, that I did not risk the ridicule of my fellowphysicians by mentioning it, but gave some other reason for postponingtheir experiments. No sooner, however, had they left me, than I set onfoot a systematic attempt at resuscitation, of which you know theresult. "

Had its theme been yet more incredible, the circumstantiality of thisnarrative, as well as the impressive manner and personality of thenarrator, might have staggered a listener, and I had begun to feel verystrangely, when, as he closed, I chanced to catch a glimpse of myreflection in a mirror hanging on the wall of the room. I rose and wentup to it. The face I saw was the face to a hair and a line and not aday older than the one I had looked at as I tied my cravat before goingto Edith that Decoration Day, which, as this man would have me believe, was celebrated one hundred and thirteen years before. At this, thecolossal character of the fraud which was being attempted on me, cameover me afresh. Indignation mastered my mind as I realized theoutrageous liberty that had been taken. 

"You are probably surprised, " said my companion, "to see that, althoughyou are a century older than when you lay down to sleep in thatunderground chamber, your appearance is unchanged. That should notamaze you. It is by virtue of the total arrest of the vital functionsthat you have survived this great period of time. If your body couldhave undergone any change during your trance, it would long ago havesuffered dissolution. "

"Sir, " I replied, turning to him, "what your motive can be in recitingto me with a serious face this remarkable farrago, I am utterly unableto guess; but you are surely yourself too intelligent to suppose thatanybody but an imbecile could be deceived by it. Spare me any more ofthis elaborate nonsense and once for all tell me whether you refuse togive me an intelligible account of where I am and how I came here. Ifso, I shall proceed to ascertain my whereabouts for myself, whoever mayhinder. "

"You do not, then, believe that this is the year 2000?"

"Do you really think it necessary to ask me that?" I returned. 

"Very well, " replied my extraordinary host. "Since I cannot convinceyou, you shall convince yourself. Are you strong enough to follow meupstairs?"

"I am as strong as I ever was, " I replied angrily, "as I may have toprove if this jest is carried much farther. "

"I beg, sir, " was my companion's response, "that you will not allowyourself to be too fully persuaded that you are the victim of a trick, lest the reaction, when you are convinced of the truth of mystatements, should be too great. "

The tone of concern, mingled with commiseration, with which he saidthis, and the entire absence of any sign of resentment at my hot words, strangely daunted me, and I followed him from the room with anextraordinary mixture of emotions. He led the way up two flights ofstairs and then up a shorter one, which landed us upon a belvedere onthe house-top. "Be pleased to look around you, " he said, as we reachedthe platform, "and tell me if this is the Boston of the nineteenthcentury. "

At my feet lay a great city. Miles of broad streets, shaded by treesand lined with fine buildings, for the most part not in continuousblocks but set in larger or smaller inclosures, stretched in everydirection. Every quarter contained large open squares filled withtrees, among which statues glistened and fountains flashed in the lateafternoon sun. Public buildings of a colossal size and an architecturalgrandeur unparalleled in my day raised their stately piles on everyside. Surely I had never seen this city nor one comparable to itbefore. Raising my eyes at last towards the horizon, I looked westward. That blue ribbon winding away to the sunset, was it not the sinuousCharles? I looked east; Boston harbor stretched before me within itsheadlands, not one of its green islets missing. 

I knew then that I had been told the truth concerning the prodigiousthing which had befallen me. 

Chapter 4

I did not faint, but the effort to realize my position made me verygiddy, and I remember that my companion had to give me a strong arm ashe conducted me from the roof to a roomy apartment on the upper floorof the house, where he insisted on my drinking a glass or two of goodwine and partaking of a light repast. 

"I think you are going to be all right now, " he said cheerily. "Ishould not have taken so abrupt a means to convince you of yourposition if your course, while perfectly excusable under thecircumstances, had not rather obliged me to do so. I confess, " he addedlaughing, "I was a little apprehensive at one time that I shouldundergo what I believe you used to call a knockdown in the nineteenthcentury, if I did not act rather promptly. I remembered that theBostonians of your day were famous pugilists, and thought best to loseno time. I take it you are now ready to acquit me of the charge ofhoaxing you. "

"If you had told me, " I replied, profoundly awed, "that a thousandyears instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last looked on thiscity, I should now believe you. "

"Only a century has passed, " he answered, "but many a millennium in theworld's history has seen changes less extraordinary. "

"And now, " he added, extending his hand with an air of irresistiblecordiality, "let me give you a hearty welcome to the Boston of thetwentieth century and to this house. My name is Leete, Dr. Leete theycall me. "

"My name, " I said as I shook his hand, "is Julian West. "

"I am most happy in making your acquaintance, Mr. West, " he responded. "Seeing that this house is built on the site of your own, I hope youwill find it easy to make yourself at home in it. "

After my refreshment Dr. Leete offered me a bath and a change ofclothing, of which I gladly availed myself. 

It did not appear that any very startling revolution in men's attirehad been among the great changes my host had spoken of, for, barring afew details, my new habiliments did not puzzle me at all. 

Physically, I was now myself again. But mentally, how was it with me, the reader will doubtless wonder. What were my intellectual sensations, he may wish to know, on finding myself so suddenly dropped as it wereinto a new world. In reply let me ask him to suppose himself suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, transported from earth, say, to Paradise orHades. What does he fancy would be his own experience? Would histhoughts return at once to the earth he had just left, or would he, after the first shock, wellnigh forget his former life for a while, albeit to be remembered later, in the interest excited by his newsurroundings? All I can say is, that if his experience were at all likemine in the transition I am describing, the latter hypothesis wouldprove the correct one. The impressions of amazement and curiosity whichmy new surroundings produced occupied my mind, after the first shock, to the exclusion of all other thoughts. For the time the memory of myformer life was, as it were, in abeyance. 

No sooner did I find myself physically rehabilitated through the kindoffices of my host, than I became eager to return to the house-top; andpresently we were comfortably established there in easy-chairs, withthe city beneath and around us. After Dr. Leete had responded tonumerous questions on my part, as to the ancient landmarks I missed andthe new ones which had replaced them, he asked me what point of thecontrast between the new and the old city struck me most forcibly. 

"To speak of small things before great, " I responded, "I really thinkthat the complete absence of chimneys and their smoke is the detailthat first impressed me. "

"Ah!" ejaculated my companion with an air of much interest, "I hadforgotten the chimneys, it is so long since they went out of use. It isnearly a century since the crude method of combustion on which youdepended for heat became obsolete. "

"In general, " I said, "what impresses me most about the city is thematerial prosperity on the part of the people which its magnificenceimplies. "

"I would give a great deal for just one glimpse of the Boston of yourday, " replied Dr. Leete. "No doubt, as you imply, the cities of thatperiod were rather shabby affairs. If you had the taste to make themsplendid, which I would not be so rude as to question, the generalpoverty resulting from your extraordinary industrial system would nothave given you the means. Moreover, the excessive individualism whichthen prevailed was inconsistent with much public spirit. What littlewealth you had seems almost wholly to have been lavished in privateluxury. Nowadays, on the contrary, there is no destination of thesurplus wealth so popular as the adornment of the city, which all enjoyin equal degree. "

The sun had been setting as we returned to the house-top, and as wetalked night descended upon the city. 

"It is growing dark, " said Dr. Leete. "Let us descend into the house; Iwant to introduce my wife and daughter to you. "

His words recalled to me the feminine voices which I had heardwhispering about me as I was coming back to conscious life; and, mostcurious to learn what the ladies of the year 2000 were like, I assentedwith alacrity to the proposition. The apartment in which we found thewife and daughter of my host, as well as the entire interior of thehouse, was filled with a mellow light, which I knew must be artificial, although I could not discover the source from which it was diffused. Mrs. Leete was an exceptionally fine looking and well preserved womanof about her husband's age, while the daughter, who was in the firstblush of womanhood, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Herface was as bewitching as deep blue eyes, delicately tinted complexion, and perfect features could make it, but even had her countenance lackedspecial charms, the faultless luxuriance of her figure would have givenher place as a beauty among the women of the nineteenth century. Feminine softness and delicacy were in this lovely creature deliciouslycombined with an appearance of health and abounding physical vitalitytoo often lacking in the maidens with whom alone I could compare her. It was a coincidence trifling in comparison with the generalstrangeness of the situation, but still striking, that her name shouldbe Edith. 

The evening that followed was certainly unique in the history of socialintercourse, but to suppose that our conversation was peculiarlystrained or difficult would be a great mistake. I believe indeed thatit is under what may be called unnatural, in the sense ofextraordinary, circumstances that people behave most naturally, for thereason, no doubt, that such circumstances banish artificiality. I knowat any rate that my intercourse that evening with these representativesof another age and world was marked by an ingenuous sincerity andfrankness such as but rarely crown long acquaintance. No doubt theexquisite tact of my entertainers had much to do with this. Of coursethere was nothing we could talk of but the strange experience by virtueof which I was there, but they talked of it with an interest so naiveand direct in its expression as to relieve the subject to a greatdegree of the element of the weird and the uncanny which might soeasily have been overpowering. One would have supposed that they werequite in the habit of entertaining waifs from another century, soperfect was their tact. 

For my own part, never do I remember the operations of my mind to havebeen more alert and acute than that evening, or my intellectualsensibilities more keen. Of course I do not mean that the consciousnessof my amazing situation was for a moment out of mind, but its chiefeffect thus far was to produce a feverish elation, a sort of mentalintoxication. [1]

Edith Leete took little part in the conversation, but when severaltimes the magnetism of her beauty drew my glance to her face, I foundher eyes fixed on me with an absorbed intensity, almost likefascination. It was evident that I had excited her interest to anextraordinary degree, as was not astonishing, supposing her to be agirl of imagination. Though I supposed curiosity was the chief motiveof her interest, it could but affect me as it would not have done hadshe been less beautiful. 

Dr. Leete, as well as the ladies, seemed greatly interested in myaccount of the circumstances under which I had gone to sleep in theunderground chamber. All had suggestions to offer to account for myhaving been forgotten there, and the theory which we finally agreed onoffers at least a plausible explanation, although whether it be in itsdetails the true one, nobody, of course, will ever know. The layer ofashes found above the chamber indicated that the house had been burneddown. Let it be supposed that the conflagration had taken place thenight I fell asleep. It only remains to assume that Sawyer lost hislife in the fire or by some accident connected with it, and the restfollows naturally enough. No one but he and Dr. Pillsbury either knewof the existence of the chamber or that I was in it, and Dr. Pillsbury, who had gone that night to New Orleans, had probably never heard of thefire at all. The conclusion of my friends, and of the public, must havebeen that I had perished in the flames. An excavation of the ruins, unless thorough, would not have disclosed the recess in the foundationwalls connecting with my chamber. To be sure, if the site had beenagain built upon, at least immediately, such an excavation would havebeen necessary, but the troublous times and the undesirable characterof the locality might well have prevented rebuilding. The size of thetrees in the garden now occupying the site indicated, Dr. Leete said, that for more than half a century at least it had been open ground. 

[1] In accounting for this state of mind it must be remembered that, except for the topic of our conversations, there was in my surroundingsnext to nothing to suggest what had befallen me. Within a block of myhome in the old Boston I could have found social circles vastly moreforeign to me. The speech of the Bostonians of the twentieth centurydiffers even less from that of their cultured ancestors of thenineteenth than did that of the latter from the language of Washingtonand Franklin, while the differences between the style of dress andfurniture of the two epochs are not more marked than I have knownfashion to make in the time of one generation. 

Chapter 5

When, in the course of the evening the ladies retired, leaving Dr. Leete and myself alone, he sounded me as to my disposition for sleep, saying that if I felt like it my bed was ready for me; but if I wasinclined to wakefulness nothing would please him better than to bear mecompany. "I am a late bird, myself, " he said, "and, without suspicionof flattery, I may say that a companion more interesting than yourselfcould scarcely be imagined. It is decidedly not often that one has achance to converse with a man of the nineteenth century. "

Now I had been looking forward all the evening with some dread to thetime when I should be alone, on retiring for the night. Surrounded bythese most friendly strangers, stimulated and supported by theirsympathetic interest, I had been able to keep my mental balance. Eventhen, however, in pauses of the conversation I had had glimpses, vividas lightning flashes, of the horror of strangeness that was waiting tobe faced when I could no longer command diversion. I knew I could notsleep that night, and as for lying awake and thinking, it argues nocowardice, I am sure, to confess that I was afraid of it. When, inreply to my host's question, I frankly told him this, he replied thatit would be strange if I did not feel just so, but that I need have noanxiety about sleeping; whenever I wanted to go to bed, he would giveme a dose which would insure me a sound night's sleep without fail. Next morning, no doubt, I would awake with the feeling of an oldcitizen. 

"Before I acquired that, " I replied, "I must know a little more aboutthe sort of Boston I have come back to. You told me when we were uponthe house-top that though a century only had elapsed since I fellasleep, it had been marked by greater changes in the conditions ofhumanity than many a previous millennium. With the city before me Icould well believe that, but I am very curious to know what some of thechanges have been. To make a beginning somewhere, for the subject isdoubtless a large one, what solution, if any, have you found for thelabor question? It was the Sphinx's riddle of the nineteenth century, and when I dropped out the Sphinx was threatening to devour society, because the answer was not forthcoming. It is well worth sleeping ahundred years to learn what the right answer was, if, indeed, you havefound it yet. "

"As no such thing as the labor question is known nowadays, " replied Dr. Leete, "and there is no way in which it could arise, I suppose we mayclaim to have solved it. Society would indeed have fully deserved beingdevoured if it had failed to answer a riddle so entirely simple. Infact, to speak by the book, it was not necessary for society to solvethe riddle at all. It may be said to have solved itself. The solutioncame as the result of a process of industrial evolution which could nothave terminated otherwise. All that society had to do was to recognizeand cooperate with that evolution, when its tendency had becomeunmistakable. "

"I can only say, " I answered, "that at the time I fell asleep no suchevolution had been recognized. "

"It was in 1887 that you fell into this sleep, I think you said. "

"Yes, May 30th, 1887. "

My companion regarded me musingly for some moments. Then he observed, "And you tell me that even then there was no general recognition of thenature of the crisis which society was nearing? Of course, I fullycredit your statement. The singular blindness of your contemporaries tothe signs of the times is a phenomenon commented on by many of ourhistorians, but few facts of history are more difficult for us torealize, so obvious and unmistakable as we look back seem theindications, which must also have come under your eyes, of thetransformation about to come to pass. I should be interested, Mr. West, if you would give me a little more definite idea of the view which youand men of your grade of intellect took of the state and prospects ofsociety in 1887. You must, at least, have realized that the widespreadindustrial and social troubles, and the underlying dissatisfaction ofall classes with the inequalities of society, and the general misery ofmankind, were portents of great changes of some sort. "

"We did, indeed, fully realize that, " I replied. "We felt that societywas dragging anchor and in danger of going adrift. Whither it woulddrift nobody could say, but all feared the rocks. "

"Nevertheless, " said Dr. Leete, "the set of the current was perfectlyperceptible if you had but taken pains to observe it, and it was nottoward the rocks, but toward a deeper channel. "

"We had a popular proverb, " I replied, "that 'hindsight is better thanforesight, ' the force of which I shall now, no doubt, appreciate morefully than ever. All I can say is, that the prospect was such when Iwent into that long sleep that I should not have been surprised had Ilooked down from your house-top to-day on a heap of charred andmoss-grown ruins instead of this glorious city. "

Dr. Leete had listened to me with close attention and noddedthoughtfully as I finished speaking. "What you have said, " he observed, "will be regarded as a most valuable vindication of Storiot, whoseaccount of your era has been generally thought exaggerated in itspicture of the gloom and confusion of men's minds. That a period oftransition like that should be full of excitement and agitation wasindeed to be looked for; but seeing how plain was the tendency of theforces in operation, it was natural to believe that hope rather thanfear would have been the prevailing temper of the popular mind. "

"You have not yet told me what was the answer to the riddle which youfound, " I said. "I am impatient to know by what contradiction ofnatural sequence the peace and prosperity which you now seem to enjoycould have been the outcome of an era like my own. "

"Excuse me, " replied my host, "but do you smoke?" It was not till ourcigars were lighted and drawing well that he resumed. "Since you are inthe humor to talk rather than to sleep, as I certainly am, perhaps Icannot do better than to try to give you enough idea of our modernindustrial system to dissipate at least the impression that there isany mystery about the process of its evolution. The Bostonians of yourday had the reputation of being great askers of questions, and I amgoing to show my descent by asking you one to begin with. What shouldyou name as the most prominent feature of the labor troubles of yourday?"

"Why, the strikes, of course, " I replied. 

"Exactly; but what made the strikes so formidable?"

"The great labor organizations. "

"And what was the motive of these great organizations?"

"The workmen claimed they had to organize to get their rights from thebig corporations, " I replied. 

"That is just it, " said Dr. Leete; "the organization of labor and thestrikes were an effect, merely, of the concentration of capital ingreater masses than had ever been known before. Before thisconcentration began, while as yet commerce and industry were conductedby innumerable petty concerns with small capital, instead of a smallnumber of great concerns with vast capital, the individual workman wasrelatively important and independent in his relations to the employer. Moreover, when a little capital or a new idea was enough to start a manin business for himself, workingmen were constantly becoming employersand there was no hard and fast line between the two classes. Laborunions were needless then, and general strikes out of the question. Butwhen the era of small concerns with small capital was succeeded by thatof the great aggregations of capital, all this was changed. Theindividual laborer, who had been relatively important to the smallemployer, was reduced to insignificance and powerlessness over againstthe great corporation, while at the same time the way upward to thegrade of employer was closed to him. Self-defense drove him to unionwith his fellows. 

"The records of the period show that the outcry against theconcentration of capital was furious. Men believed that it threatenedsociety with a form of tyranny more abhorrent than it had ever endured. They believed that the great corporations were preparing for them theyoke of a baser servitude than had ever been imposed on the race, servitude not to men but to soulless machines incapable of any motivebut insatiable greed. Looking back, we cannot wonder at theirdesperation, for certainly humanity was never confronted with a fatemore sordid and hideous than would have been the era of corporatetyranny which they anticipated. 

"Meanwhile, without being in the smallest degree checked by the clamoragainst it, the absorption of business by ever larger monopoliescontinued. In the United States there was not, after the beginning ofthe last quarter of the century, any opportunity whatever forindividual enterprise in any important field of industry, unless backedby a great capital. During the last decade of the century, such smallbusinesses as still remained were fast-failing survivals of a pastepoch, or mere parasites on the great corporations, or else existed infields too small to attract the great capitalists. Small businesses, asfar as they still remained, were reduced to the condition of rats andmice, living in holes and corners, and counting on evading notice forthe enjoyment of existence. The railroads had gone on combining till afew great syndicates controlled every rail in the land. Inmanufactories, every important staple was controlled by a syndicate. These syndicates, pools, trusts, or whatever their name, fixed pricesand crushed all competition except when combinations as vast asthemselves arose. Then a struggle, resulting in a still greaterconsolidation, ensued. The great city bazar crushed it country rivalswith branch stores, and in the city itself absorbed its smaller rivalstill the business of a whole quarter was concentrated under one roof, with a hundred former proprietors of shops serving as clerks. Having nobusiness of his own to put his money in, the small capitalist, at thesame time that he took service under the corporation, found no otherinvestment for his money but its stocks and bonds, thus becoming doublydependent upon it. 

"The fact that the desperate popular opposition to the consolidation ofbusiness in a few powerful hands had no effect to check it proves thatthere must have been a strong economical reason for it. The smallcapitalists, with their innumerable petty concerns, had in fact yieldedthe field to the great aggregations of capital, because they belongedto a day of small things and were totally incompetent to the demands ofan age of steam and telegraphs and the gigantic scale of itsenterprises. To restore the former order of things, even if possible, would have involved returning to the day of stagecoaches. Oppressiveand intolerable as was the regime of the great consolidations ofcapital, even its victims, while they cursed it, were forced to admitthe prodigious increase of efficiency which had been imparted to thenational industries, the vast economies effected by concentration ofmanagement and unity of organization, and to confess that since the newsystem had taken the place of the old the wealth of the world hadincreased at a rate before undreamed of. To be sure this vast increasehad gone chiefly to make the rich richer, increasing the gap betweenthem and the poor; but the fact remained that, as a means merely ofproducing wealth, capital had been proved efficient in proportion toits consolidation. The restoration of the old system with thesubdivision of capital, if it were possible, might indeed bring back agreater equality of conditions, with more individual dignity andfreedom, but it would be at the price of general poverty and the arrestof material progress. 

"Was there, then, no way of commanding the services of the mightywealth-producing principle of consolidated capital without bowing downto a plutocracy like that of Carthage? As soon as men began to askthemselves these questions, they found the answer ready for them. Themovement toward the conduct of business by larger and largeraggregations of capital, the tendency toward monopolies, which had beenso desperately and vainly resisted, was recognized at last, in its truesignificance, as a process which only needed to complete its logicalevolution to open a golden future to humanity. 

"Early in the last century the evolution was completed by the finalconsolidation of the entire capital of the nation. The industry andcommerce of the country, ceasing to be conducted by a set ofirresponsible corporations and syndicates of private persons at theircaprice and for their profit, were intrusted to a single syndicaterepresenting the people, to be conducted in the common interest for thecommon profit. The nation, that is to say, organized as the one greatbusiness corporation in which all other corporations were absorbed; itbecame the one capitalist in the place of all other capitalists, thesole employer, the final monopoly in which all previous and lessermonopolies were swallowed up, a monopoly in the profits and economiesof which all citizens shared. The epoch of trusts had ended in TheGreat Trust. In a word, the people of the United States concluded toassume the conduct of their own business, just as one hundred odd yearsbefore they had assumed the conduct of their own government, organizingnow for industrial purposes on precisely the same grounds that they hadthen organized for political purposes. At last, strangely late in theworld's history, the obvious fact was perceived that no business is soessentially the public business as the industry and commerce on whichthe people's livelihood depends, and that to entrust it to privatepersons to be managed for private profit is a folly similar in kind, though vastly greater in magnitude, to that of surrendering thefunctions of political government to kings and nobles to be conductedfor their personal glorification. "

"Such a stupendous change as you describe, " said I, "did not, ofcourse, take place without great bloodshed and terrible convulsions. "

"On the contrary, " replied Dr. Leete, "there was absolutely noviolence. The change had been long foreseen. Public opinion had becomefully ripe for it, and the whole mass of the people was behind it. There was no more possibility of opposing it by force than by argument. On the other hand the popular sentiment toward the great corporationsand those identified with them had ceased to be one of bitterness, asthey came to realize their necessity as a link, a transition phase, inthe evolution of the true industrial system. The most violent foes ofthe great private monopolies were now forced to recognize howinvaluable and indispensable had been their office in educating thepeople up to the point of assuming control of their own business. Fiftyyears before, the consolidation of the industries of the country undernational control would have seemed a very daring experiment to the mostsanguine. But by a series of object lessons, seen and studied by allmen, the great corporations had taught the people an entirely new setof ideas on this subject. They had seen for many years syndicateshandling revenues greater than those of states, and directing thelabors of hundreds of thousands of men with an efficiency and economyunattainable in smaller operations. It had come to be recognized as anaxiom that the larger the business the simpler the principles that canbe applied to it; that, as the machine is truer than the hand, so thesystem, which in a great concern does the work of the master's eye in asmall business, turns out more accurate results. Thus it came aboutthat, thanks to the corporations themselves, when it was proposed thatthe nation should assume their functions, the suggestion impliednothing which seemed impracticable even to the timid. To be sure it wasa step beyond any yet taken, a broader generalization, but the veryfact that the nation would be the sole corporation in the field would, it was seen, relieve the undertaking of many difficulties with whichthe partial monopolies had contended. "

Chapter 6

Dr. Leete ceased speaking, and I remained silent, endeavoring to formsome general conception of the changes in the arrangements of societyimplied in the tremendous revolution which he had described. 

Finally I said, "The idea of such an extension of the functions ofgovernment is, to say the least, rather overwhelming. "

"Extension!" he repeated, "where is the extension?"

"In my day, " I replied, "it was considered that the proper functions ofgovernment, strictly speaking, were limited to keeping the peace anddefending the people against the public enemy, that is, to the militaryand police powers. "

"And, in heaven's name, who are the public enemies?" exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Are they France, England, Germany, or hunger, cold, andnakedness? In your day governments were accustomed, on the slightestinternational misunderstanding, to seize upon the bodies of citizensand deliver them over by hundreds of thousands to death and mutilation, wasting their treasures the while like water; and all this oftenest forno imaginable profit to the victims. We have no wars now, and ourgovernments no war powers, but in order to protect every citizenagainst hunger, cold, and nakedness, and provide for all his physicaland mental needs, the function is assumed of directing his industry fora term of years. No, Mr. West, I am sure on reflection you willperceive that it was in your age, not in ours, that the extension ofthe functions of governments was extraordinary. Not even for the bestends would men now allow their governments such powers as were thenused for the most maleficent. "

"Leaving comparisons aside, " I said, "the demagoguery and corruption ofour public men would have been considered, in my day, insuperableobjections to any assumption by government of the charge of thenational industries. We should have thought that no arrangement couldbe worse than to entrust the politicians with control of thewealth-producing machinery of the country. Its material interests werequite too much the football of parties as it was. "

"No doubt you were right, " rejoined Dr. Leete, "but all that is changednow. We have no parties or politicians, and as for demagoguery andcorruption, they are words having only an historical significance. "

"Human nature itself must have changed very much, " I said. 

"Not at all, " was Dr. Leete's reply, "but the conditions of human lifehave changed, and with them the motives of human action. Theorganization of society with you was such that officials were under aconstant temptation to misuse their power for the private profit ofthemselves or others. Under such circumstances it seems almost strangethat you dared entrust them with any of your affairs. Nowadays, on thecontrary, society is so constituted that there is absolutely no way inwhich an official, however ill-disposed, could possibly make any profitfor himself or any one else by a misuse of his power. Let him be as badan official as you please, he cannot be a corrupt one. There is nomotive to be. The social system no longer offers a premium ondishonesty. But these are matters which you can only understand as youcome, with time, to know us better. "

"But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labor problem. It is the problem of capital which we have been discussing, " I said. "After the nation had assumed conduct of the mills, machinery, railroads, farms, mines, and capital in general of the country, thelabor question still remained. In assuming the responsibilities ofcapital the nation had assumed the difficulties of the capitalist'sposition. "

"The moment the nation assumed the responsibilities of capital thosedifficulties vanished, " replied Dr. Leete. "The national organizationof labor under one direction was the complete solution of what was, inyour day and under your system, justly regarded as the insoluble laborproblem. When the nation became the sole employer, all the citizens, byvirtue of their citizenship, became employees, to be distributedaccording to the needs of industry. "

"That is, " I suggested, "you have simply applied the principle ofuniversal military service, as it was understood in our day, to thelabor question. "

"Yes, " said Dr. Leete, "that was something which followed as a matterof course as soon as the nation had become the sole capitalist. Thepeople were already accustomed to the idea that the obligation of everycitizen, not physically disabled, to contribute his military servicesto the defense of the nation was equal and absolute. That it wasequally the duty of every citizen to contribute his quota of industrialor intellectual services to the maintenance of the nation was equallyevident, though it was not until the nation became the employer oflabor that citizens were able to render this sort of service with anypretense either of universality or equity. No organization of labor waspossible when the employing power was divided among hundreds orthousands of individuals and corporations, between which concert of anykind was neither desired, nor indeed feasible. It constantly happenedthen that vast numbers who desired to labor could find no opportunity, and on the other hand, those who desired to evade a part or all oftheir debt could easily do so. "

"Service, now, I suppose, is compulsory upon all, " I suggested. 

"It is rather a matter of course than of compulsion, " replied Dr. Leete. "It is regarded as so absolutely natural and reasonable that theidea of its being compulsory has ceased to be thought of. He would bethought to be an incredibly contemptible person who should needcompulsion in such a case. Nevertheless, to speak of service beingcompulsory would be a weak way to state its absolute inevitableness. Our entire social order is so wholly based upon and deduced from itthat if it were conceivable that a man could escape it, he would beleft with no possible way to provide for his existence. He would haveexcluded himself from the world, cut himself off from his kind, in aword, committed suicide. "

"Is the term of service in this industrial army for life?"

"Oh, no; it both begins later and ends earlier than the average workingperiod in your day. Your workshops were filled with children and oldmen, but we hold the period of youth sacred to education, and theperiod of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag, equallysacred to ease and agreeable relaxation. The period of industrialservice is twenty-four years, beginning at the close of the course ofeducation at twenty-one and terminating at forty-five. Afterforty-five, while discharged from labor, the citizen still remainsliable to special calls, in case of emergencies causing a sudden greatincrease in the demand for labor, till he reaches the age offifty-five, but such calls are rarely, in fact almost never, made. Thefifteenth day of October of every year is what we call Muster Day, because those who have reached the age of twenty-one are then musteredinto the industrial service, and at the same time those who, aftertwenty-four years' service, have reached the age of forty-five, arehonorably mustered out. It is the great day of the year with us, whencewe reckon all other events, our Olympiad, save that it is annual. "

Chapter 7

"It is after you have mustered your industrial army into service, " Isaid, "that I should expect the chief difficulty to arise, for thereits analogy with a military army must cease. Soldiers have all the samething, and a very simple thing, to do, namely, to practice the manualof arms, to march and stand guard. But the industrial army must learnand follow two or three hundred diverse trades and avocations. Whatadministrative talent can be equal to determining wisely what trade orbusiness every individual in a great nation shall pursue?"

"The administration has nothing to do with determining that point. "

"Who does determine it, then?" I asked. 

"Every man for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude, theutmost pains being taken to enable him to find out what his naturalaptitude really is. The principle on which our industrial army isorganized is that a man's natural endowments, mental and physical, determine what he can work at most profitably to the nation and mostsatisfactorily to himself. While the obligation of service in some formis not to be evaded, voluntary election, subject only to necessaryregulation, is depended on to determine the particular sort of serviceevery man is to render. As an individual's satisfaction during his termof service depends on his having an occupation to his taste, parentsand teachers watch from early years for indications of specialaptitudes in children. A thorough study of the National industrialsystem, with the history and rudiments of all the great trades, is anessential part of our educational system. While manual training is notallowed to encroach on the general intellectual culture to which ourschools are devoted, it is carried far enough to give our youth, inaddition to their theoretical knowledge of the national industries, mechanical and agricultural, a certain familiarity with their tools andmethods. Our schools are constantly visiting our workshops, and oftenare taken on long excursions to inspect particular industrialenterprises. In your day a man was not ashamed to be grossly ignorantof all trades except his own, but such ignorance would not beconsistent with our idea of placing every one in a position to selectintelligently the occupation for which he has most taste. Usually longbefore he is mustered into service a young man has found out thepursuit he wants to follow, has acquired a great deal of knowledgeabout it, and is waiting impatiently the time when he can enlist in itsranks. "

"Surely, " I said, "it can hardly be that the number of volunteers forany trade is exactly the number needed in that trade. It must begenerally either under or over the demand. "

"The supply of volunteers is always expected to fully equal thedemand, " replied Dr. Leete. "It is the business of the administrationto see that this is the case. The rate of volunteering for each tradeis closely watched. If there be a noticeably greater excess ofvolunteers over men needed in any trade, it is inferred that the tradeoffers greater attractions than others. On the other hand, if thenumber of volunteers for a trade tends to drop below the demand, it isinferred that it is thought more arduous. It is the business of theadministration to seek constantly to equalize the attractions of thetrades, so far as the conditions of labor in them are concerned, sothat all trades shall be equally attractive to persons having naturaltastes for them. This is done by making the hours of labor in differenttrades to differ according to their arduousness. The lighter trades, prosecuted under the most agreeable circumstances, have in this way thelongest hours, while an arduous trade, such as mining, has very shorthours. There is no theory, no a priori rule, by which the respectiveattractiveness of industries is determined. The administration, intaking burdens off one class of workers and adding them to otherclasses, simply follows the fluctuations of opinion among the workersthemselves as indicated by the rate of volunteering. The principle isthat no man's work ought to be, on the whole, harder for him than anyother man's for him, the workers themselves to be the judges. There areno limits to the application of this rule. If any particular occupationis in itself so arduous or so oppressive that, in order to inducevolunteers, the day's work in it had to be reduced to ten minutes, itwould be done. If, even then, no man was willing to do it, it wouldremain undone. But of course, in point of fact, a moderate reduction inthe hours of labor, or addition of other privileges, suffices to secureall needed volunteers for any occupation necessary to men. If, indeed, the unavoidable difficulties and dangers of such a necessary pursuitwere so great that no inducement of compensating advantages wouldovercome men's repugnance to it, the administration would only need totake it out of the common order of occupations by declaring it 'extrahazardous, ' and those who pursued it especially worthy of the nationalgratitude, to be overrun with volunteers. Our young men are very greedyof honor, and do not let slip such opportunities. Of course you willsee that dependence on the purely voluntary choice of avocationsinvolves the abolition in all of anything like unhygienic conditions orspecial peril to life and limb. Health and safety are conditions commonto all industries. The nation does not maim and slaughter its workmenby thousands, as did the private capitalists and corporations of yourday. "

"When there are more who want to enter a particular trade than there isroom for, how do you decide between the applicants?" I inquired. 

"Preference is given to those who have acquired the most knowledge ofthe trade they wish to follow. No man, however, who through successiveyears remains persistent in his desire to show what he can do at anyparticular trade, is in the end denied an opportunity. Meanwhile, if aman cannot at first win entrance into the business he prefers, he hasusually one or more alternative preferences, pursuits for which he hassome degree of aptitude, although not the highest. Every one, indeed, is expected to study his aptitudes so as to have not only a firstchoice as to occupation, but a second or third, so that if, either atthe outset of his career or subsequently, owing to the progress ofinvention or changes in demand, he is unable to follow his firstvocation, he can still find reasonably congenial employment. Thisprinciple of secondary choices as to occupation is quite important inour system. I should add, in reference to the counter-possibility ofsome sudden failure of volunteers in a particular trade, or some suddennecessity of an increased force, that the administration, whiledepending on the voluntary system for filling up the trades as a rule, holds always in reserve the power to call for special volunteers, ordraft any force needed from any quarter. Generally, however, all needsof this sort can be met by details from the class of unskilled orcommon laborers. "

"How is this class of common laborers recruited?" I asked. "Surelynobody voluntarily enters that. "

"It is the grade to which all new recruits belong for the first threeyears of their service. It is not till after this period, during whichhe is assignable to any work at the discretion of his superiors, thatthe young man is allowed to elect a special avocation. These threeyears of stringent discipline none are exempt from, and very glad ouryoung men are to pass from this severe school into the comparativeliberty of the trades. If a man were so stupid as to have no choice asto occupation, he would simply remain a common laborer; but such cases, as you may suppose, are not common. "

"Having once elected and entered on a trade or occupation, " I remarked, "I suppose he has to stick to it the rest of his life. "

"Not necessarily, " replied Dr. Leete; "while frequent and merelycapricious changes of occupation are not encouraged or even permitted, every worker is allowed, of course, under certain regulations and inaccordance with the exigencies of the service, to volunteer for anotherindustry which he thinks would suit him better than his first choice. In this case his application is received just as if he werevolunteering for the first time, and on the same terms. Not only this, but a worker may likewise, under suitable regulations and not toofrequently, obtain a transfer to an establishment of the same industryin another part of the country which for any reason he may prefer. Under your system a discontented man could indeed leave his work atwill, but he left his means of support at the same time, and took hischances as to future livelihood. We find that the number of men whowish to abandon an accustomed occupation for a new one, and old friendsand associations for strange ones, is small. It is only the poorer sortof workmen who desire to change even as frequently as our regulationspermit. Of course transfers or discharges, when health demands them, are always given. "

"As an industrial system, I should think this might be extremelyefficient, " I said, "but I don't see that it makes any provision forthe professional classes, the men who serve the nation with brainsinstead of hands. Of course you can't get along without thebrain-workers. How, then, are they selected from those who are to serveas farmers and mechanics? That must require a very delicate sort ofsifting process, I should say. "

"So it does, " replied Dr. Leete; "the most delicate possible test isneeded here, and so we leave the question whether a man shall be abrain or hand worker entirely to him to settle. At the end of the termof three years as a common laborer, which every man must serve, it isfor him to choose, in accordance to his natural tastes, whether he willfit himself for an art or profession, or be a farmer or mechanic. If hefeels that he can do better work with his brains than his muscles, hefinds every facility provided for testing the reality of his supposedbent, of cultivating it, and if fit of pursuing it as his avocation. The schools of technology, of medicine, of art, of music, ofhistrionics, and of higher liberal learning are always open toaspirants without condition. "

"Are not the schools flooded with young men whose only motive is toavoid work?"

Dr. Leete smiled a little grimly. 

"No one is at all likely to enter the professional schools for thepurpose of avoiding work, I assure you, " he said. "They are intendedfor those with special aptitude for the branches they teach, and anyone without it would find it easier to do double hours at his tradethan try to keep up with the classes. Of course many honestly mistaketheir vocation, and, finding themselves unequal to the requirements ofthe schools, drop out and return to the industrial service; nodiscredit attaches to such persons, for the public policy is toencourage all to develop suspected talents which only actual tests canprove the reality of. The professional and scientific schools of yourday depended on the patronage of their pupils for support, and thepractice appears to have been common of giving diplomas to unfitpersons, who afterwards found their way into the professions. Ourschools are national institutions, and to have passed their tests is aproof of special abilities not to be questioned. 

"This opportunity for a professional training, " the doctor continued, "remains open to every man till the age of thirty is reached, afterwhich students are not received, as there would remain too brief aperiod before the age of discharge in which to serve the nation intheir professions. In your day young men had to choose theirprofessions very young, and therefore, in a large proportion ofinstances, wholly mistook their vocations. It is recognized nowadaysthat the natural aptitudes of some are later than those of others indeveloping, and therefore, while the choice of profession may be madeas early as twenty-four, it remains open for six years longer. "

A question which had a dozen times before been on my lips now foundutterance, a question which touched upon what, in my time, had beenregarded the most vital difficulty in the way of any final settlementof the industrial problem. "It is an extraordinary thing, " I said, "that you should not yet have said a word about the method of adjustingwages. Since the nation is the sole employer, the government must fixthe rate of wages and determine just how much everybody shall earn, from the doctors to the diggers. All I can say is, that this plan wouldnever have worked with us, and I don't see how it can now unless humannature has changed. In my day, nobody was satisfied with his wages orsalary. Even if he felt he received enough, he was sure his neighborhad too much, which was as bad. If the universal discontent on thissubject, instead of being dissipated in curses and strikes directedagainst innumerable employers, could have been concentrated upon one, and that the government, the strongest ever devised would not have seentwo pay days. "

Dr. Leete laughed heartily. 

"Very true, very true, " he said, "a general strike would most probablyhave followed the first pay day, and a strike directed against agovernment is a revolution. "

"How, then, do you avoid a revolution every pay day?" if demanded. "Hassome prodigious philosopher devised a new system of calculussatisfactory to all for determining the exact and comparative value ofall sorts of service, whether by brawn or brain, by hand or voice, byear or eye? Or has human nature itself changed, so that no man looksupon his own things but 'every man on the things of his neighbor'? Oneor the other of these events must be the explanation. "

"Neither one nor the other, however, is, " was my host's laughingresponse. "And now, Mr. West, " he continued, "you must remember thatyou are my patient as well as my guest, and permit me to prescribesleep for you before we have any more conversation. It is after threeo'clock. "

"The prescription is, no doubt, a wise one, " I said; "I only hope itcan be filled. "

"I will see to that, " the doctor replied, and he did, for he gave me awineglass of something or other which sent me to sleep as soon as myhead touched the pillow. 

Chapter 8

When I awoke I felt greatly refreshed, and lay a considerable time in adozing state, enjoying the sensation of bodily comfort. The experiencesof the day previous, my waking to find myself in the year 2000, thesight of the new Boston, my host and his family, and the wonderfulthings I had heard, were a blank in my memory. I thought I was in mybed-chamber at home, and the half-dreaming, half-waking fancies whichpassed before my mind related to the incidents and experiences of myformer life. Dreamily I reviewed the incidents of Decoration Day, mytrip in company with Edith and her parents to Mount Auburn, and mydining with them on our return to the city. I recalled how extremelywell Edith had looked, and from that fell to thinking of our marriage;but scarcely had my imagination begun to develop this delightful themethan my waking dream was cut short by the recollection of the letter Ihad received the night before from the builder announcing that the newstrikes might postpone indefinitely the completion of the new house. The chagrin which this recollection brought with it effectually rousedme. I remembered that I had an appointment with the builder at eleveno'clock, to discuss the strike, and opening my eyes, looked up at theclock at the foot of my bed to see what time it was. But no clock metmy glance, and what was more, I instantly perceived that I was not inmy room. Starting up on my couch, I stared wildly round the strangeapartment. 

I think it must have been many seconds that I sat up thus in bedstaring about, without being able to regain the clew to my personalidentity. I was no more able to distinguish myself from pure beingduring those moments than we may suppose a soul in the rough to bebefore it has received the ear-marks, the individualizing touches whichmake it a person. Strange that the sense of this inability should besuch anguish! but so we are constituted. There are no words for themental torture I endured during this helpless, eyeless groping formyself in a boundless void. No other experience of the mind givesprobably anything like the sense of absolute intellectual arrest fromthe loss of a mental fulcrum, a starting point of thought, which comesduring such a momentary obscuration of the sense of one's identity. Itrust I may never know what it is again. 

I do not know how long this condition had lasted--it seemed aninterminable time--when, like a flash, the recollection of everythingcame back to me. I remembered who and where I was, and how I had comehere, and that these scenes as of the life of yesterday which had beenpassing before my mind concerned a generation long, long ago moulderedto dust. Leaping from bed, I stood in the middle of the room claspingmy temples with all my might between my hands to keep them frombursting. Then I fell prone on the couch, and, burying my face in thepillow, lay without motion. The reaction which was inevitable, from themental elation, the fever of the intellect that had been the firsteffect of my tremendous experience, had arrived. The emotional crisiswhich had awaited the full realization of my actual position, and allthat it implied, was upon me, and with set teeth and laboring chest, gripping the bedstead with frenzied strength, I lay there and foughtfor my sanity. In my mind, all had broken loose, habits of feeling, associations of thought, ideas of persons and things, all had dissolvedand lost coherence and were seething together in apparentlyirretrievable chaos. There were no rallying points, nothing was leftstable. There only remained the will, and was any human will strongenough to say to such a weltering sea, "Peace, be still"? I dared notthink. Every effort to reason upon what had befallen me, and realizewhat it implied, set up an intolerable swimming of the brain. The ideathat I was two persons, that my identity was double, began to fascinateme with its simple solution of my experience. 

I knew that I was on the verge of losing my mental balance. If I laythere thinking, I was doomed. Diversion of some sort I must have, atleast the diversion of physical exertion. I sprang up, and, hastilydressing, opened the door of my room and went down-stairs. The hour wasvery early, it being not yet fairly light, and I found no one in thelower part of the house. There was a hat in the hall, and, opening thefront door, which was fastened with a slightness indicating thatburglary was not among the perils of the modern Boston, I found myselfon the street. For two hours I walked or ran through the streets of thecity, visiting most quarters of the peninsular part of the town. Nonebut an antiquarian who knows something of the contrast which the Bostonof today offers to the Boston of the nineteenth century can begin toappreciate what a series of bewildering surprises I underwent duringthat time. Viewed from the house-top the day before, the city hadindeed appeared strange to me, but that was only in its general aspect. How complete the change had been I first realized now that I walked thestreets. The few old landmarks which still remained only intensifiedthis effect, for without them I might have imagined myself in a foreigntown. A man may leave his native city in childhood, and return fiftyyears later, perhaps, to find it transformed in many features. He isastonished, but he is not bewildered. He is aware of a great lapse oftime, and of changes likewise occurring in himself meanwhile. He butdimly recalls the city as he knew it when a child. But remember thatthere was no sense of any lapse of time with me. So far as myconsciousness was concerned, it was but yesterday, but a few hours, since I had walked these streets in which scarcely a feature hadescaped a complete metamorphosis. The mental image of the old city wasso fresh and strong that it did not yield to the impression of theactual city, but contended with it, so that it was first one and thenthe other which seemed the more unreal. There was nothing I saw whichwas not blurred in this way, like the faces of a composite photograph. 

Finally, I stood again at the door of the house from which I had comeout. My feet must have instinctively brought me back to the site of myold home, for I had no clear idea of returning thither. It was no morehomelike to me than any other spot in this city of a strangegeneration, nor were its inmates less utterly and necessarily strangersthan all the other men and women now on the earth. Had the door of thehouse been locked, I should have been reminded by its resistance that Ihad no object in entering, and turned away, but it yielded to my hand, and advancing with uncertain steps through the hall, I entered one ofthe apartments opening from it. Throwing myself into a chair, I coveredmy burning eyeballs with my hands to shut out the horror ofstrangeness. My mental confusion was so intense as to produce actualnausea. The anguish of those moments, during which my brain seemedmelting, or the abjectness of my sense of helplessness, how can Idescribe? In my despair I groaned aloud. I began to feel that unlesssome help should come I was about to lose my mind. And just then it didcome. I heard the rustle of drapery, and looked up. Edith Leete wasstanding before me. Her beautiful face was full of the most poignantsympathy. 

"Oh, what is the matter, Mr. West?" she said. "I was here when you camein. I saw how dreadfully distressed you looked, and when I heard yougroan, I could not keep silent. What has happened to you? Where haveyou been? Can't I do something for you?"

Perhaps she involuntarily held out her hands in a gesture of compassionas she spoke. At any rate I had caught them in my own and was clingingto them with an impulse as instinctive as that which prompts thedrowning man to seize upon and cling to the rope which is thrown him ashe sinks for the last time. As I looked up into her compassionate faceand her eyes moist with pity, my brain ceased to whirl. The tenderhuman sympathy which thrilled in the soft pressure of her fingers hadbrought me the support I needed. Its effect to calm and soothe was likethat of some wonder-working elixir. 

"God bless you, " I said, after a few moments. "He must have sent you tome just now. I think I was in danger of going crazy if you had notcome. " At this the tears came into her eyes. 

"Oh, Mr. West!" she cried. "How heartless you must have thought us! Howcould we leave you to yourself so long! But it is over now, is it not?You are better, surely. "

"Yes, " I said, "thanks to you. If you will not go away quite yet, Ishall be myself soon. "

"Indeed I will not go away, " she said, with a little quiver of herface, more expressive of her sympathy than a volume of words. "You mustnot think us so heartless as we seemed in leaving you so by yourself. Iscarcely slept last night, for thinking how strange your waking wouldbe this morning; but father said you would sleep till late. He saidthat it would be better not to show too much sympathy with you atfirst, but to try to divert your thoughts and make you feel that youwere among friends. "

"You have indeed made me feel that, " I answered. "But you see it is agood deal of a jolt to drop a hundred years, and although I did notseem to feel it so much last night, I have had very odd sensations thismorning. " While I held her hands and kept my eyes on her face, I couldalready even jest a little at my plight. 

"No one thought of such a thing as your going out in the city alone soearly in the morning, " she went on. "Oh, Mr. West, where have you been?"

Then I told her of my morning's experience, from my first waking tillthe moment I had looked up to see her before me, just as I have told ithere. She was overcome by distressful pity during the recital, and, though I had released one of her hands, did not try to take from me theother, seeing, no doubt, how much good it did me to hold it. "I canthink a little what this feeling must have been like, " she said. "Itmust have been terrible. And to think you were left alone to strugglewith it! Can you ever forgive us?"

"But it is gone now. You have driven it quite away for the present, " Isaid. 

"You will not let it return again, " she queried anxiously. 

"I can't quite say that, " I replied. "It might be too early to saythat, considering how strange everything will still be to me. "

"But you will not try to contend with it alone again, at least, " shepersisted. "Promise that you will come to us, and let us sympathizewith you, and try to help you. Perhaps we can't do much, but it willsurely be better than to try to bear such feelings alone. "

"I will come to you if you will let me, " I said. 

"Oh yes, yes, I beg you will, " she said eagerly. "I would do anythingto help you that I could. "

"All you need do is to be sorry for me, as you seem to be now, " Ireplied. 

"It is understood, then, " she said, smiling with wet eyes, "that youare to come and tell me next time, and not run all over Boston amongstrangers. "

This assumption that we were not strangers seemed scarcely strange, sonear within these few minutes had my trouble and her sympathetic tearsbrought us. 

"I will promise, when you come to me, " she added, with an expression ofcharming archness, passing, as she continued, into one of enthusiasm, "to seem as sorry for you as you wish, but you must not for a momentsuppose that I am really sorry for you at all, or that I think you willlong be sorry for yourself. I know, as well as I know that the worldnow is heaven compared with what it was in your day, that the onlyfeeling you will have after a little while will be one of thankfulnessto God that your life in that age was so strangely cut off, to bereturned to you in this. "

Chapter 9

Dr. And Mrs. Leete were evidently not a little startled to learn, whenthey presently appeared, that I had been all over the city alone thatmorning, and it was apparent that they were agreeably surprised to seethat I seemed so little agitated after the experience. 

"Your stroll could scarcely have failed to be a very interesting one, "said Mrs. Leete, as we sat down to table soon after. "You must haveseen a good many new things. "

"I saw very little that was not new, " I replied. "But I think whatsurprised me as much as anything was not to find any stores onWashington Street, or any banks on State. What have you done with themerchants and bankers? Hung them all, perhaps, as the anarchists wantedto do in my day?"

"Not so bad as that, " replied Dr. Leete. "We have simply dispensed withthem. Their functions are obsolete in the modern world. "

"Who sells you things when you want to buy them?" I inquired. 

"There is neither selling nor buying nowadays; the distribution ofgoods is effected in another way. As to the bankers, having no money wehave no use for those gentry. "

"Miss Leete, " said I, turning to Edith, "I am afraid that your fatheris making sport of me. I don't blame him, for the temptation myinnocence offers must be extraordinary. But, really, there are limitsto my credulity as to possible alterations in the social system. "

"Father has no idea of jesting, I am sure, " she replied, with areassuring smile. 

The conversation took another turn then, the point of ladies' fashionsin the nineteenth century being raised, if I remember rightly, by Mrs. Leete, and it was not till after breakfast, when the doctor had invitedme up to the house-top, which appeared to be a favorite resort of his, that he recurred to the subject. 

"You were surprised, " he said, "at my saying that we got along withoutmoney or trade, but a moment's reflection will show that trade existedand money was needed in your day simply because the business ofproduction was left in private hands, and that, consequently, they aresuperfluous now. "

"I do not at once see how that follows, " I replied. 

"It is very simple, " said Dr. Leete. "When innumerable different andindependent persons produced the various things needful to life andcomfort, endless exchanges between individuals were requisite in orderthat they might supply themselves with what they desired. Theseexchanges constituted trade, and money was essential as their medium. But as soon as the nation became the sole producer of all sorts ofcommodities, there was no need of exchanges between individuals thatthey might get what they required. Everything was procurable from onesource, and nothing could be procured anywhere else. A system of directdistribution from the national storehouses took the place of trade, andfor this money was unnecessary. "

"How is this distribution managed?" I asked. 

"On the simplest possible plan, " replied Dr. Leete. "A creditcorresponding to his share of the annual product of the nation is givento every citizen on the public books at the beginning of each year, anda credit card issued him with which he procures at the publicstorehouses, found in every community, whatever he desires whenever hedesires it. This arrangement, you will see, totally obviates thenecessity for business transactions of any sort between individuals andconsumers. Perhaps you would like to see what our credit cards are like. 

"You observe, " he pursued as I was curiously examining the piece ofpasteboard he gave me, "that this card is issued for a certain numberof dollars. We have kept the old word, but not the substance. The term, as we use it, answers to no real thing, but merely serves as analgebraical symbol for comparing the values of products with oneanother. For this purpose they are all priced in dollars and cents, just as in your day. The value of what I procure on this card ischecked off by the clerk, who pricks out of these tiers of squares theprice of what I order. "

"If you wanted to buy something of your neighbor, could you transferpart of your credit to him as consideration?" I inquired. 

"In the first place, " replied Dr. Leete, "our neighbors have nothing tosell us, but in any event our credit would not be transferable, beingstrictly personal. Before the nation could even think of honoring anysuch transfer as you speak of, it would be bound to inquire into allthe circumstances of the transaction, so as to be able to guarantee itsabsolute equity. It would have been reason enough, had there been noother, for abolishing money, that its possession was no indication ofrightful title to it. In the hands of the man who had stolen it ormurdered for it, it was as good as in those which had earned it byindustry. People nowadays interchange gifts and favors out offriendship, but buying and selling is considered absolutelyinconsistent with the mutual benevolence and disinterestedness whichshould prevail between citizens and the sense of community of interestwhich supports our social system. According to our ideas, buying andselling is essentially anti-social in all its tendencies. It is aneducation in self-seeking at the expense of others, and no societywhose citizens are trained in such a school can possibly rise above avery low grade of civilization. "

"What if you have to spend more than your card in any one year?" Iasked. 

"The provision is so ample that we are more likely not to spend itall, " replied Dr. Leete. "But if extraordinary expenses should exhaustit, we can obtain a limited advance on the next year's credit, thoughthis practice is not encouraged, and a heavy discount is charged tocheck it. Of course if a man showed himself a reckless spendthrift hewould receive his allowance monthly or weekly instead of yearly, or ifnecessary not be permitted to handle it all. "

"If you don't spend your allowance, I suppose it accumulates?"

"That is also permitted to a certain extent when a special outlay isanticipated. But unless notice to the contrary is given, it is presumedthat the citizen who does not fully expend his credit did not haveoccasion to do so, and the balance is turned into the general surplus. "

"Such a system does not encourage saving habits on the part ofcitizens, " I said. 

"It is not intended to, " was the reply. "The nation is rich, and doesnot wish the people to deprive themselves of any good thing. In yourday, men were bound to lay up goods and money against coming failure ofthe means of support and for their children. This necessity madeparsimony a virtue. But now it would have no such laudable object, and, having lost its utility, it has ceased to be regarded as a virtue. Noman any more has any care for the morrow, either for himself or hischildren, for the nation guarantees the nurture, education, andcomfortable maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave. "

"That is a sweeping guarantee!" I said. "What certainty can there bethat the value of a man's labor will recompense the nation for itsoutlay on him? On the whole, society may be able to support all itsmembers, but some must earn less than enough for their support, andothers more; and that brings us back once more to the wages question, on which you have hitherto said nothing. It was at just this point, ifyou remember, that our talk ended last evening; and I say again, as Idid then, that here I should suppose a national industrial system likeyours would find its main difficulty. How, I ask once more, can youadjust satisfactorily the comparative wages or remuneration of themultitude of avocations, so unlike and so incommensurable, which arenecessary for the service of society? In our day the market ratedetermined the price of labor of all sorts, as well as of goods. Theemployer paid as little as he could, and the worker got as much. It wasnot a pretty system ethically, I admit; but it did, at least, furnishus a rough and ready formula for settling a question which must besettled ten thousand times a day if the world was ever going to getforward. There seemed to us no other practicable way of doing it. "

"Yes, " replied Dr. Leete, "it was the only practicable way under asystem which made the interests of every individual antagonistic tothose of every other; but it would have been a pity if humanity couldnever have devised a better plan, for yours was simply the applicationto the mutual relations of men of the devil's maxim, 'Your necessity ismy opportunity. ' The reward of any service depended not upon itsdifficulty, danger, or hardship, for throughout the world it seems thatthe most perilous, severe, and repulsive labor was done by the worstpaid classes; but solely upon the strait of those who needed theservice. "

"All that is conceded, " I said. "But, with all its defects, the plan ofsettling prices by the market rate was a practical plan; and I cannotconceive what satisfactory substitute you can have devised for it. Thegovernment being the only possible employer, there is of course nolabor market or market rate. Wages of all sorts must be arbitrarilyfixed by the government. I cannot imagine a more complex and delicatefunction than that must be, or one, however performed, more certain tobreed universal dissatisfaction. "

"I beg your pardon, " replied Dr. Leete, "but I think you exaggerate thedifficulty. Suppose a board of fairly sensible men were charged withsettling the wages for all sorts of trades under a system which, likeours, guaranteed employment to all, while permitting the choice ofavocations. Don't you see that, however unsatisfactory the firstadjustment might be, the mistakes would soon correct themselves? Thefavored trades would have too many volunteers, and those discriminatedagainst would lack them till the errors were set right. But this isaside from the purpose, for, though this plan would, I fancy, bepracticable enough, it is no part of our system. "

"How, then, do you regulate wages?" I once more asked. 

Dr. Leete did not reply till after several moments of meditativesilence. "I know, of course, " he finally said, "enough of the old orderof things to understand just what you mean by that question; and yetthe present order is so utterly different at this point that I am alittle at loss how to answer you best. You ask me how we regulatewages; I can only reply that there is no idea in the modern socialeconomy which at all corresponds with what was meant by wages in yourday. "

"I suppose you mean that you have no money to pay wages in, " said I. "But the credit given the worker at the government storehouse answersto his wages with us. How is the amount of the credit givenrespectively to the workers in different lines determined? By whattitle does the individual claim his particular share? What is the basisof allotment?"

"His title, " replied Dr. Leete, "is his humanity. The basis of hisclaim is the fact that he is a man. "

"The fact that he is a man!" I repeated, incredulously. "Do youpossibly mean that all have the same share?"

"Most assuredly. "

The readers of this book never having practically known any otherarrangement, or perhaps very carefully considered the historicalaccounts of former epochs in which a very different system prevailed, cannot be expected to appreciate the stupor of amazement into which Dr. Leete's simple statement plunged me. 

"You see, " he said, smiling, "that it is not merely that we have nomoney to pay wages in, but, as I said, we have nothing at all answeringto your idea of wages. "

By this time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice some ofthe criticisms which, man of the nineteenth century as I was, cameuppermost in my mind, upon this to me astounding arrangement. "Some mendo twice the work of others!" I exclaimed. "Are the clever workmencontent with a plan that ranks them with the indifferent?"

"We leave no possible ground for any complaint of injustice, " repliedDr. Leete, "by requiring precisely the same measure of service fromall. "

"How can you do that, I should like to know, when no two men's powersare the same?"

"Nothing could be simpler, " was Dr. Leete's reply. "We require of eachthat he shall make the same effort; that is, we demand of him the bestservice it is in his power to give. "

"And supposing all do the best they can, " I answered, "the amount ofthe product resulting is twice greater from one man than from another. "

"Very true, " replied Dr. Leete; "but the amount of the resultingproduct has nothing whatever to do with the question, which is one ofdesert. Desert is a moral question, and the amount of the product amaterial quantity. It would be an extraordinary sort of logic whichshould try to determine a moral question by a material standard. Theamount of the effort alone is pertinent to the question of desert. Allmen who do their best, do the same. A man's endowments, howevergodlike, merely fix the measure of his duty. The man of greatendowments who does not do all he might, though he may do more than aman of small endowments who does his best, is deemed a less deservingworker than the latter, and dies a debtor to his fellows. The Creatorsets men's tasks for them by the faculties he gives them; we simplyexact their fulfillment. "

"No doubt that is very fine philosophy, " I said; "nevertheless it seemshard that the man who produces twice as much as another, even if bothdo their best, should have only the same share. "

"Does it, indeed, seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete. "Now, do youknow, that seems very curious to me? The way it strikes people nowadaysis, that a man who can produce twice as much as another with the sameeffort, instead of being rewarded for doing so, ought to be punished ifhe does not do so. In the nineteenth century, when a horse pulled aheavier load than a goat, I suppose you rewarded him. Now, we shouldhave whipped him soundly if he had not, on the ground that, being muchstronger, he ought to. It is singular how ethical standards change. "The doctor said this with such a twinkle in his eye that I was obligedto laugh. 

"I suppose, " I said, "that the real reason that we rewarded men fortheir endowments, while we considered those of horses and goats merelyas fixing the service to be severally required of them, was that theanimals, not being reasoning beings, naturally did the best they could, whereas men could only be induced to do so by rewarding them accordingto the amount of their product. That brings me to ask why, unless humannature has mightily changed in a hundred years, you are not under thesame necessity. "

"We are, " replied Dr. Leete. "I don't think there has been any changein human nature in that respect since your day. It is still soconstituted that special incentives in the form of prizes, andadvantages to be gained, are requisite to call out the best endeavorsof the average man in any direction. "

"But what inducement, " I asked, "can a man have to put forth his bestendeavors when, however much or little he accomplishes, his incomeremains the same? High characters may be moved by devotion to thecommon welfare under such a system, but does not the average man tendto rest back on his oar, reasoning that it is of no use to make aspecial effort, since the effort will not increase his income, nor itswithholding diminish it?"

"Does it then really seem to you, " answered my companion, "that humannature is insensible to any motives save fear of want and love ofluxury, that you should expect security and equality of livelihood toleave them without possible incentives to effort? Your contemporariesdid not really think so, though they might fancy they did. When it wasa question of the grandest class of efforts, the most absoluteself-devotion, they depended on quite other incentives. Not higherwages, but honor and the hope of men's gratitude, patriotism and theinspiration of duty, were the motives which they set before theirsoldiers when it was a question of dying for the nation, and never wasthere an age of the world when those motives did not call out what isbest and noblest in men. And not only this, but when you come toanalyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort inyour day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury was butone of several motives which the pursuit of money represented; theothers, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, ofsocial position, and reputation for ability and success. So you seethat though we have abolished poverty and the fear of it, andinordinate luxury with the hope of it, we have not touched the greaterpart of the motives which underlay the love of money in former times, or any of those which prompted the supremer sorts of effort. Thecoarser motives, which no longer move us, have been replaced by highermotives wholly unknown to the mere wage earners of your age. Now thatindustry of whatever sort is no longer self-service, but service of thenation, patriotism, passion for humanity, impel the worker as in yourday they did the soldier. The army of industry is an army, not alone byvirtue of its perfect organization, but by reason also of the ardor ofself-devotion which animates its members. 

"But as you used to supplement the motives of patriotism with the loveof glory, in order to stimulate the valor of your soldiers, so do we. Based as our industrial system is on the principle of requiring thesame unit of effort from every man, that is, the best he can do, youwill see that the means by which we spur the workers to do their bestmust be a very essential part of our scheme. With us, diligence in thenational service is the sole and certain way to public repute, socialdistinction, and official power. The value of a man's services tosociety fixes his rank in it. Compared with the effect of our socialarrangements in impelling men to be zealous in business, we deem theobject-lessons of biting poverty and wanton luxury on which youdepended a device as weak and uncertain as it was barbaric. The lust ofhonor even in your sordid day notoriously impelled men to moredesperate effort than the love of money could. "

"I should be extremely interested, " I said, "to learn something of whatthese social arrangements are. "

"The scheme in its details, " replied the doctor, "is of course veryelaborate, for it underlies the entire organization of our industrialarmy; but a few words will give you a general idea of it. "

At this moment our talk was charmingly interrupted by the emergenceupon the aerial platform where we sat of Edith Leete. She was dressedfor the street, and had come to speak to her father about somecommission she was to do for him. 

"By the way, Edith, " he exclaimed, as she was about to leave us toourselves, "I wonder if Mr. West would not be interested in visitingthe store with you? I have been telling him something about our systemof distribution, and perhaps he might like to see it in practicaloperation. "

"My daughter, " he added, turning to me, "is an indefatigable shopper, and can tell you more about the stores than I can. "

The proposition was naturally very agreeable to me, and Edith beinggood enough to say that she should be glad to have my company, we leftthe house together. 

Chapter 10

"If I am going to explain our way of shopping to you, " said mycompanion, as we walked along the street, "you must explain your way tome. I have never been able to understand it from all I have read on thesubject. For example, when you had such a vast number of shops, eachwith its different assortment, how could a lady ever settle upon anypurchase till she had visited all the shops? for, until she had, shecould not know what there was to choose from. "

"It was as you suppose; that was the only way she could know, " Ireplied. 

"Father calls me an indefatigable shopper, but I should soon be a veryfatigued one if I had to do as they did, " was Edith's laughing comment. 

"The loss of time in going from shop to shop was indeed a waste whichthe busy bitterly complained of, " I said; "but as for the ladies of theidle class, though they complained also, I think the system was reallya godsend by furnishing a device to kill time. "

"But say there were a thousand shops in a city, hundreds, perhaps, ofthe same sort, how could even the idlest find time to make theirrounds?"

"They really could not visit all, of course, " I replied. "Those who dida great deal of buying, learned in time where they might expect to findwhat they wanted. This class had made a science of the specialties ofthe shops, and bought at advantage, always getting the most and bestfor the least money. It required, however, long experience to acquirethis knowledge. Those who were too busy, or bought too little to gainit, took their chances and were generally unfortunate, getting theleast and worst for the most money. It was the merest chance if personsnot experienced in shopping received the value of their money. "

"But why did you put up with such a shockingly inconvenient arrangementwhen you saw its faults so plainly?" Edith asked me. 

"It was like all our social arrangements, " I replied. "You can seetheir faults scarcely more plainly than we did, but we saw no remedyfor them. "

"Here we are at the store of our ward, " said Edith, as we turned in atthe great portal of one of the magnificent public buildings I hadobserved in my morning walk. There was nothing in the exterior aspectof the edifice to suggest a store to a representative of the nineteenthcentury. There was no display of goods in the great windows, or anydevice to advertise wares, or attract custom. Nor was there any sort ofsign or legend on the front of the building to indicate the characterof the business carried on there; but instead, above the portal, standing out from the front of the building, a majestic life-size groupof statuary, the central figure of which was a female ideal of Plenty, with her cornucopia. Judging from the composition of the throng passingin and out, about the same proportion of the sexes among shoppersobtained as in the nineteenth century. As we entered, Edith said thatthere was one of these great distributing establishments in each wardof the city, so that no residence was more than five or ten minutes'walk from one of them. It was the first interior of a twentieth-centurypublic building that I had ever beheld, and the spectacle naturallyimpressed me deeply. I was in a vast hall full of light, received notalone from the windows on all sides, but from the dome, the point ofwhich was a hundred feet above. Beneath it, in the centre of the hall, a magnificent fountain played, cooling the atmosphere to a deliciousfreshness with its spray. The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellowtints, calculated to soften without absorbing the light which floodedthe interior. Around the fountain was a space occupied with chairs andsofas, on which many persons were seated conversing. Legends on thewalls all about the hall indicated to what classes of commodities thecounters below were devoted. Edith directed her steps towards one ofthese, where samples of muslin of a bewildering variety were displayed, and proceeded to inspect them. 

"Where is the clerk?" I asked, for there was no one behind the counter, and no one seemed coming to attend to the customer. 

"I have no need of the clerk yet, " said Edith; "I have not made myselection. "

"It was the principal business of clerks to help people to make theirselections in my day, " I replied. 

"What! To tell people what they wanted?"

"Yes; and oftener to induce them to buy what they didn't want. "

"But did not ladies find that very impertinent?" Edith asked, wonderingly. "What concern could it possibly be to the clerks whetherpeople bought or not?"

"It was their sole concern, " I answered. "They were hired for thepurpose of getting rid of the goods, and were expected to do theirutmost, short of the use of force, to compass that end. "

"Ah, yes! How stupid I am to forget!" said Edith. "The storekeeper andhis clerks depended for their livelihood on selling the goods in yourday. Of course that is all different now. The goods are the nation's. They are here for those who want them, and it is the business of theclerks to wait on people and take their orders; but it is not theinterest of the clerk or the nation to dispose of a yard or a pound ofanything to anybody who does not want it. " She smiled as she added, "How exceedingly odd it must have seemed to have clerks trying toinduce one to take what one did not want, or was doubtful about!"

"But even a twentieth century clerk might make himself useful in givingyou information about the goods, though he did not tease you to buythem, " I suggested. 

"No, " said Edith, "that is not the business of the clerk. These printedcards, for which the government authorities are responsible, give usall the information we can possibly need. "

I saw then that there was fastened to each sample a card containing insuccinct form a complete statement of the make and materials of thegoods and all its qualities, as well as price, leaving absolutely nopoint to hang a question on. 

"The clerk has, then, nothing to say about the goods he sells?" I said. 

"Nothing at all. It is not necessary that he should know or profess toknow anything about them. Courtesy and accuracy in taking orders areall that are required of him. "

"What a prodigious amount of lying that simple arrangement saves!" Iejaculated. 

"Do you mean that all the clerks misrepresented their goods in yourday?" Edith asked. 

"God forbid that I should say so!" I replied, "for there were many whodid not, and they were entitled to especial credit, for when one'slivelihood and that of his wife and babies depended on the amount ofgoods he could dispose of, the temptation to deceive the customer--orlet him deceive himself--was wellnigh overwhelming. But, Miss Leete, Iam distracting you from your task with my talk. "

"Not at all. I have made my selections. " With that she touched abutton, and in a moment a clerk appeared. He took down her order on atablet with a pencil which made two copies, of which he gave one toher, and enclosing the counterpart in a small receptacle, dropped itinto a transmitting tube. 

"The duplicate of the order, " said Edith as she turned away from thecounter, after the clerk had punched the value of her purchase out ofthe credit card she gave him, "is given to the purchaser, so that anymistakes in filling it can be easily traced and rectified. "

"You were very quick about your selections, " I said. "May I ask how youknew that you might not have found something to suit you better in someof the other stores? But probably you are required to buy in your owndistrict. "

"Oh, no, " she replied. "We buy where we please, though naturally mostoften near home. But I should have gained nothing by visiting otherstores. The assortment in all is exactly the same, representing as itdoes in each case samples of all the varieties produced or imported bythe United States. That is why one can decide quickly, and never needvisit two stores. "

"And is this merely a sample store? I see no clerks cutting off goodsor marking bundles. "

"All our stores are sample stores, except as to a few classes ofarticles. The goods, with these exceptions, are all at the greatcentral warehouse of the city, to which they are shipped directly fromthe producers. We order from the sample and the printed statement oftexture, make, and qualities. The orders are sent to the warehouse, andthe goods distributed from there. "

"That must be a tremendous saving of handling, " I said. "By our system, the manufacturer sold to the wholesaler, the wholesaler to theretailer, and the retailer to the consumer, and the goods had to behandled each time. You avoid one handling of the goods, and eliminatethe retailer altogether, with his big profit and the army of clerks itgoes to support. Why, Miss Leete, this store is merely the orderdepartment of a wholesale house, with no more than a wholesaler'scomplement of clerks. Under our system of handling the goods, persuading the customer to buy them, cutting them off, and packingthem, ten clerks would not do what one does here. The saving must beenormous. "

"I suppose so, " said Edith, "but of course we have never known anyother way. But, Mr. West, you must not fail to ask father to take youto the central warehouse some day, where they receive the orders fromthe different sample houses all over the city and parcel out and sendthe goods to their destinations. He took me there not long ago, and itwas a wonderful sight. The system is certainly perfect; for example, over yonder in that sort of cage is the dispatching clerk. The orders, as they are taken by the different departments in the store, are sentby transmitters to him. His assistants sort them and enclose each classin a carrier-box by itself. The dispatching clerk has a dozen pneumatictransmitters before him answering to the general classes of goods, eachcommunicating with the corresponding department at the warehouse. Hedrops the box of orders into the tube it calls for, and in a fewmoments later it drops on the proper desk in the warehouse, togetherwith all the orders of the same sort from the other sample stores. Theorders are read off, recorded, and sent to be filled, like lightning. The filling I thought the most interesting part. Bales of cloth areplaced on spindles and turned by machinery, and the cutter, who alsohas a machine, works right through one bale after another tillexhausted, when another man takes his place; and it is the same withthose who fill the orders in any other staple. The packages are thendelivered by larger tubes to the city districts, and thence distributedto the houses. You may understand how quickly it is all done when Itell you that my order will probably be at home sooner than I couldhave carried it from here. "

"How do you manage in the thinly settled rural districts?" I asked. 

"The system is the same, " Edith explained; "the village sample shopsare connected by transmitters with the central county warehouse, whichmay be twenty miles away. The transmission is so swift, though, thatthe time lost on the way is trifling. But, to save expense, in manycounties one set of tubes connect several villages with the warehouse, and then there is time lost waiting for one another. Sometimes it istwo or three hours before goods ordered are received. It was so where Iwas staying last summer, and I found it quite inconvenient. "[1]

"There must be many other respects also, no doubt, in which the countrystores are inferior to the city stores, " I suggested. 

"No, " Edith answered, "they are otherwise precisely as good. The sampleshop of the smallest village, just like this one, gives you your choiceof all the varieties of goods the nation has, for the county warehousedraws on the same source as the city warehouse. "

As we walked home I commented on the great variety in the size and costof the houses. "How is it, " I asked, "that this difference isconsistent with the fact that all citizens have the same income?"

"Because, " Edith explained, "although the income is the same, personaltaste determines how the individual shall spend it. Some like finehorses; others, like myself, prefer pretty clothes; and still otherswant an elaborate table. The rents which the nation receives for thesehouses vary, according to size, elegance, and location, so thateverybody can find something to suit. The larger houses are usuallyoccupied by large families, in which there are several to contribute tothe rent; while small families, like ours, find smaller houses moreconvenient and economical. It is a matter of taste and conveniencewholly. I have read that in old times people often kept upestablishments and did other things which they could not afford forostentation, to make people think them richer than they were. Was itreally so, Mr. West?"

"I shall have to admit that it was, " I replied. 

"Well, you see, it could not be so nowadays; for everybody's income isknown, and it is known that what is spent one way must be savedanother. "

[1] I am informed since the above is in type that this lack ofperfection in the distributing service of some of the country districtsis to be remedied, and that soon every village will have its own set oftubes. 

Chapter 11

When we arrived home, Dr. Leete had not yet returned, and Mrs. Leetewas not visible. "Are you fond of music, Mr. West?" Edith asked. 

I assured her that it was half of life, according to my notion. 

"I ought to apologize for inquiring, " she said. "It is not a questionthat we ask one another nowadays; but I have read that in your day, even among the cultured class, there were some who did not care formusic. "

"You must remember, in excuse, " I said, "that we had some rather absurdkinds of music. "

"Yes, " she said, "I know that; I am afraid I should not have fancied itall myself. Would you like to hear some of ours now, Mr. West?"

"Nothing would delight me so much as to listen to you, " I said. 

"To me!" she exclaimed, laughing. "Did you think I was going to play orsing to you?"

"I hoped so, certainly, " I replied. 

Seeing that I was a little abashed, she subdued her merriment andexplained. "Of course, we all sing nowadays as a matter of course inthe training of the voice, and some learn to play instruments for theirprivate amusement; but the professional music is so much grander andmore perfect than any performance of ours, and so easily commanded whenwe wish to hear it, that we don't think of calling our singing orplaying music at all. All the really fine singers and players are inthe musical service, and the rest of us hold our peace for the mainpart. But would you really like to hear some music?"

I assured her once more that I would. 

"Come, then, into the music room, " she said, and I followed her into anapartment finished, without hangings, in wood, with a floor of polishedwood. I was prepared for new devices in musical instruments, but I sawnothing in the room which by any stretch of imagination could beconceived as such. It was evident that my puzzled appearance wasaffording intense amusement to Edith. 

"Please look at to-day's music, " she said, handing me a card, "and tellme what you would prefer. It is now five o'clock, you will remember. "

The card bore the date "September 12, 2000, " and contained the longestprogramme of music I had ever seen. It was as various as it was long, including a most extraordinary range of vocal and instrumental solos, duets, quartettes, and various orchestral combinations. I remainedbewildered by the prodigious list until Edith's pink finger tipindicated a particular section of it, where several selections werebracketed, with the words "5 P. M. " against them; then I observed thatthis prodigious programme was an all-day one, divided into twenty-foursections answering to the hours. There were but a few pieces of musicin the "5 P. M. " section, and I indicated an organ piece as mypreference. 

"I am so glad you like the organ, " said she. "I think there is scarcelyany music that suits my mood oftener. "

She made me sit down comfortably, and, crossing the room, so far as Icould see, merely touched one or two screws, and at once the room wasfilled with the music of a grand organ anthem; filled, not flooded, for, by some means, the volume of melody had been perfectly graduatedto the size of the apartment. I listened, scarcely breathing, to theclose. Such music, so perfectly rendered, I had never expected to hear. 

"Grand!" I cried, as the last great wave of sound broke and ebbed awayinto silence. "Bach must be at the keys of that organ; but where is theorgan?"

"Wait a moment, please, " said Edith; "I want to have you listen to thiswaltz before you ask any questions. I think it is perfectly charming";and as she spoke the sound of violins filled the room with the witcheryof a summer night. When this had also ceased, she said: "There isnothing in the least mysterious about the music, as you seem toimagine. It is not made by fairies or genii, but by good, honest, andexceedingly clever human hands. We have simply carried the idea oflabor saving by cooperation into our musical service as into everythingelse. There are a number of music rooms in the city, perfectly adaptedacoustically to the different sorts of music. These halls are connectedby telephone with all the houses of the city whose people care to paythe small fee, and there are none, you may be sure, who do not. Thecorps of musicians attached to each hall is so large that, although noindividual performer, or group of performers, has more than a briefpart, each day's programme lasts through the twenty-four hours. Thereare on that card for to-day, as you will see if you observe closely, distinct programmes of four of these concerts, each of a differentorder of music from the others, being now simultaneously performed, andany one of the four pieces now going on that you prefer, you can hearby merely pressing the button which will connect your house-wire withthe hall where it is being rendered. The programmes are so coordinatedthat the pieces at any one time simultaneously proceeding in thedifferent halls usually offer a choice, not only between instrumentaland vocal, and between different sorts of instruments; but also betweendifferent motives from grave to gay, so that all tastes and moods canbe suited. "

"It appears to me, Miss Leete, " I said, "that if we could have devisedan arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, andbeginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit ofhuman felicity already attained, and ceased to strive for furtherimprovements. "

"I am sure I never could imagine how those among you who depended atall on music managed to endure the old-fashioned system for providingit, " replied Edith. "Music really worth hearing must have been, Isuppose, wholly out of the reach of the masses, and attainable by themost favored only occasionally, at great trouble, prodigious expense, and then for brief periods, arbitrarily fixed by somebody else, and inconnection with all sorts of undesirable circumstances. Your concerts, for instance, and operas! How perfectly exasperating it must have been, for the sake of a piece or two of music that suited you, to have to sitfor hours listening to what you did not care for! Now, at a dinner onecan skip the courses one does not care for. Who would ever dine, however hungry, if required to eat everything brought on the table? andI am sure one's hearing is quite as sensitive as one's taste. I supposeit was these difficulties in the way of commanding really good musicwhich made you endure so much playing and singing in your homes bypeople who had only the rudiments of the art. "

"Yes, " I replied, "it was that sort of music or none for most of us. 

"Ah, well, " Edith sighed, "when one really considers, it is not sostrange that people in those days so often did not care for music. Idare say I should have detested it, too. "

"Did I understand you rightly, " I inquired, "that this musicalprogramme covers the entire twenty-four hours? It seems to on thiscard, certainly; but who is there to listen to music between saymidnight and morning?"

"Oh, many, " Edith replied. "Our people keep all hours; but if the musicwere provided from midnight to morning for no others, it still would befor the sleepless, the sick, and the dying. All our bedchambers have atelephone attachment at the head of the bed by which any person who maybe sleepless can command music at pleasure, of the sort suited to themood. "

"Is there such an arrangement in the room assigned to me?"

"Why, certainly; and how stupid, how very stupid, of me not to think totell you of that last night! Father will show you about the adjustmentbefore you go to bed to-night, however; and with the receiver at yourear, I am quite sure you will be able to snap your fingers at all sortsof uncanny feelings if they trouble you again. "

That evening Dr. Leete asked us about our visit to the store, and inthe course of the desultory comparison of the ways of the nineteenthcentury and the twentieth, which followed, something raised thequestion of inheritance. "I suppose, " I said, "the inheritance ofproperty is not now allowed. "

"On the contrary, " replied Dr. Leete, "there is no interference withit. In fact, you will find, Mr. West, as you come to know us, thatthere is far less interference of any sort with personal libertynowadays than you were accustomed to. We require, indeed, by law thatevery man shall serve the nation for a fixed period, instead of leavinghim his choice, as you did, between working, stealing, or starving. With the exception of this fundamental law, which is, indeed, merely acodification of the law of nature--the edict of Eden--by which it ismade equal in its pressure on men, our system depends in no particularupon legislation, but is entirely voluntary, the logical outcome of theoperation of human nature under rational conditions. This question ofinheritance illustrates just that point. The fact that the nation isthe sole capitalist and land-owner of course restricts the individual'spossessions to his annual credit, and what personal and householdbelongings he may have procured with it. His credit, like an annuity inyour day, ceases on his death, with the allowance of a fixed sum forfuneral expenses. His other possessions he leaves as he pleases. "

"What is to prevent, in course of time, such accumulations of valuablegoods and chattels in the hands of individuals as might seriouslyinterfere with equality in the circumstances of citizens?" I asked. 

"That matter arranges itself very simply, " was the reply. "Under thepresent organization of society, accumulations of personal property aremerely burdensome the moment they exceed what adds to the real comfort. In your day, if a man had a house crammed full with gold and silverplate, rare china, expensive furniture, and such things, he wasconsidered rich, for these things represented money, and could at anytime be turned into it. Nowadays a man whom the legacies of a hundredrelatives, simultaneously dying, should place in a similar position, would be considered very unlucky. The articles, not being salable, would be of no value to him except for their actual use or theenjoyment of their beauty. On the other hand, his income remaining thesame, he would have to deplete his credit to hire houses to store thegoods in, and still further to pay for the service of those who tookcare of them. You may be very sure that such a man would lose no timein scattering among his friends possessions which only made him thepoorer, and that none of those friends would accept more of them thanthey could easily spare room for and time to attend to. You see, then, that to prohibit the inheritance of personal property with a view toprevent great accumulations would be a superfluous precaution for thenation. The individual citizen can be trusted to see that he is notoverburdened. So careful is he in this respect, that the relativesusually waive claim to most of the effects of deceased friends, reserving only particular objects. The nation takes charge of theresigned chattels, and turns such as are of value into the common stockonce more. "

"You spoke of paying for service to take care of your houses, " said I;"that suggests a question I have several times been on the point ofasking. How have you disposed of the problem of domestic service? Whoare willing to be domestic servants in a community where all are socialequals? Our ladies found it hard enough to find such even when therewas little pretense of social equality. "

"It is precisely because we are all social equals whose equalitynothing can compromise, and because service is honorable, in a societywhose fundamental principle is that all in turn shall serve the rest, that we could easily provide a corps of domestic servants such as younever dreamed of, if we needed them, " replied Dr. Leete. "But we do notneed them. "

"Who does your house-work, then?" I asked. 

"There is none to do, " said Mrs. Leete, to whom I had addressed thisquestion. "Our washing is all done at public laundries at excessivelycheap rates, and our cooking at public kitchens. The making andrepairing of all we wear are done outside in public shops. Electricity, of course, takes the place of all fires and lighting. We choose housesno larger than we need, and furnish them so as to involve the minimumof trouble to keep them in order. We have no use for domestic servants. "

"The fact, " said Dr. Leete, "that you had in the poorer classes aboundless supply of serfs on whom you could impose all sorts of painfuland disagreeable tasks, made you indifferent to devices to avoid thenecessity for them. But now that we all have to do in turn whateverwork is done for society, every individual in the nation has the sameinterest, and a personal one, in devices for lightening the burden. This fact has given a prodigious impulse to labor-saving inventions inall sorts of industry, of which the combination of the maximum ofcomfort and minimum of trouble in household arrangements was one of theearliest results. 

"In case of special emergencies in the household, " pursued Dr. Leete, "such as extensive cleaning or renovation, or sickness in the family, we can always secure assistance from the industrial force. "

"But how do you recompense these assistants, since you have no money?"

"We do not pay them, of course, but the nation for them. Their servicescan be obtained by application at the proper bureau, and their value ispricked off the credit card of the applicant. "

"What a paradise for womankind the world must be now!" I exclaimed. "Inmy day, even wealth and unlimited servants did not enfranchise theirpossessors from household cares, while the women of the merelywell-to-do and poorer classes lived and died martyrs to them. "

"Yes, " said Mrs. Leete, "I have read something of that; enough toconvince me that, badly off as the men, too, were in your day, theywere more fortunate than their mothers and wives. "

"The broad shoulders of the nation, " said Dr. Leete, "bear now like afeather the burden that broke the backs of the women of your day. Theirmisery came, with all your other miseries, from that incapacity forcooperation which followed from the individualism on which your socialsystem was founded, from your inability to perceive that you could maketen times more profit out of your fellow men by uniting with them thanby contending with them. The wonder is, not that you did not live morecomfortably, but that you were able to live together at all, who wereall confessedly bent on making one another your servants, and securingpossession of one another's goods. 

"There, there, father, if you are so vehement, Mr. West will think youare scolding him, " laughingly interposed Edith. 

"When you want a doctor, " I asked, "do you simply apply to the properbureau and take any one that may be sent?"

"That rule would not work well in the case of physicians, " replied Dr. Leete. "The good a physician can do a patient depends largely on hisacquaintance with his constitutional tendencies and condition. Thepatient must be able, therefore, to call in a particular doctor, and hedoes so just as patients did in your day. The only difference is that, instead of collecting his fee for himself, the doctor collects it forthe nation by pricking off the amount, according to a regular scale formedical attendance, from the patient's credit card. "

"I can imagine, " I said, "that if the fee is always the same, and adoctor may not turn away patients, as I suppose he may not, the gooddoctors are called constantly and the poor doctors left in idleness. "

"In the first place, if you will overlook the apparent conceit of theremark from a retired physician, " replied Dr. Leete, with a smile, "wehave no poor doctors. Anybody who pleases to get a little smattering ofmedical terms is not now at liberty to practice on the bodies ofcitizens, as in your day. None but students who have passed the severetests of the schools, and clearly proved their vocation, are permittedto practice. Then, too, you will observe that there is nowadays noattempt of doctors to build up their practice at the expense of otherdoctors. There would be no motive for that. For the rest, the doctorhas to render regular reports of his work to the medical bureau, and ifhe is not reasonably well employed, work is found for him. "

Chapter 12

The questions which I needed to ask before I could acquire even anoutline acquaintance with the institutions of the twentieth centurybeing endless, and Dr. Leete's good-nature appearing equally so, we satup talking for several hours after the ladies left us. Reminding myhost of the point at which our talk had broken off that morning, Iexpressed my curiosity to learn how the organization of the industrialarmy was made to afford a sufficient stimulus to diligence in the lackof any anxiety on the worker's part as to his livelihood. 

"You must understand in the first place, " replied the doctor, "that thesupply of incentives to effort is but one of the objects sought in theorganization we have adopted for the army. The other, and equallyimportant, is to secure for the file-leaders and captains of the force, and the great officers of the nation, men of proven abilities, who arepledged by their own careers to hold their followers up to theirhighest standard of performance and permit no lagging. With a view tothese two ends the industrial army is organized. First comes theunclassified grade of common laborers, men of all work, to which allrecruits during their first three years belong. This grade is a sort ofschool, and a very strict one, in which the young men are taught habitsof obedience, subordination, and devotion to duty. While themiscellaneous nature of the work done by this force prevents thesystematic grading of the workers which is afterwards possible, yetindividual records are kept, and excellence receives distinctioncorresponding with the penalties that negligence incurs. It is not, however, policy with us to permit youthful recklessness orindiscretion, when not deeply culpable, to handicap the future careersof young men, and all who have passed through the unclassified gradewithout serious disgrace have an equal opportunity to choose the lifeemployment they have most liking for. Having selected this, they enterupon it as apprentices. The length of the apprenticeship naturallydiffers in different occupations. At the end of it the apprenticebecomes a full workman, and a member of his trade or guild. Now notonly are the individual records of the apprentices for ability andindustry strictly kept, and excellence distinguished by suitabledistinctions, but upon the average of his record during apprenticeshipthe standing given the apprentice among the full workmen depends. 

"While the internal organizations of different industries, mechanicaland agricultural, differ according to their peculiar conditions, theyagree in a general division of their workers into first, second, andthird grades, according to ability, and these grades are in many casessubdivided into first and second classes. According to his standing asan apprentice a young man is assigned his place as a first, second, orthird grade worker. Of course only men of unusual ability pass directlyfrom apprenticeship into the first grade of the workers. The most fallinto the lower grades, working up as they grow more experienced, at theperiodical regradings. These regradings take place in each industry atintervals corresponding with the length of the apprenticeship to thatindustry, so that merit never need wait long to rise, nor can any reston past achievements unless they would drop into a lower rank. One ofthe notable advantages of a high grading is the privilege it gives theworker in electing which of the various branches or processes of hisindustry he will follow as his specialty. Of course it is not intendedthat any of these processes shall be disproportionately arduous, butthere is often much difference between them, and the privilege ofelection is accordingly highly prized. So far as possible, indeed, thepreferences even of the poorest workmen are considered in assigningthem their line of work, because not only their happiness but theirusefulness is thus enhanced. While, however, the wish of the lowergrade man is consulted so far as the exigencies of the service permit, he is considered only after the upper grade men have been provided for, and often he has to put up with second or third choice, or even with anarbitrary assignment when help is needed. This privilege of electionattends every regrading, and when a man loses his grade he also riskshaving to exchange the sort of work he likes for some other less to histaste. The results of each regrading, giving the standing of every manin his industry, are gazetted in the public prints, and those who havewon promotion since the last regrading receive the nation's thanks andare publicly invested with the badge of their new rank. "

"What may this badge be?" I asked. 

"Every industry has its emblematic device, " replied Dr. Leete, "andthis, in the shape of a metallic badge so small that you might not seeit unless you knew where to look, is all the insignia which the men ofthe army wear, except where public convenience demands a distinctiveuniform. This badge is the same in form for all grades of industry, butwhile the badge of the third grade is iron, that of the second grade issilver, and that of the first is gilt. 

"Apart from the grand incentive to endeavor afforded by the fact thatthe high places in the nation are open only to the highest class men, and that rank in the army constitutes the only mode of socialdistinction for the vast majority who are not aspirants in art, literature, and the professions, various incitements of a minor, butperhaps equally effective, sort are provided in the form of specialprivileges and immunities in the way of discipline, which the superiorclass men enjoy. These, while intended to be as little as possibleinvidious to the less successful, have the effect of keeping constantlybefore every man's mind the great desirability of attaining the gradenext above his own. 

"It is obviously important that not only the good but also theindifferent and poor workmen should be able to cherish the ambition ofrising. Indeed, the number of the latter being so much greater, it iseven more essential that the ranking system should not operate todiscourage them than that it should stimulate the others. It is to thisend that the grades are divided into classes. The grades as well as theclasses being made numerically equal at each regrading, there is not atany time, counting out the officers and the unclassified and apprenticegrades, over one-ninth of the industrial army in the lowest class, andmost of this number are recent apprentices, all of whom expect to rise. Those who remain during the entire term of service in the lowest classare but a trifling fraction of the industrial army, and likely to be asdeficient in sensibility to their position as in ability to better it. 

"It is not even necessary that a worker should win promotion to ahigher grade to have at least a taste of glory. While promotionrequires a general excellence of record as a worker, honorable mentionand various sorts of prizes are awarded for excellence less thansufficient for promotion, and also for special feats and singleperformances in the various industries. There are many minordistinctions of standing, not only within the grades but within theclasses, each of which acts as a spur to the efforts of a group. It isintended that no form of merit shall wholly fail of recognition. 

"As for actual neglect of work positively bad work, or other overtremissness on the part of men incapable of generous motives, thediscipline of the industrial army is far too strict to allow anythingwhatever of the sort. A man able to do duty, and persistently refusing, is sentenced to solitary imprisonment on bread and water till heconsents. 

"The lowest grade of the officers of the industrial army, that ofassistant foremen or lieutenants, is appointed out of men who have heldtheir place for two years in the first class of the first grade. Wherethis leaves too large a range of choice, only the first group of thisclass are eligible. No one thus comes to the point of commanding menuntil he is about thirty years old. After a man becomes an officer, hisrating of course no longer depends on the efficiency of his own work, but on that of his men. The foremen are appointed from among theassistant foremen, by the same exercise of discretion limited to asmall eligible class. In the appointments to the still higher gradesanother principle is introduced, which it would take too much time toexplain now. 

"Of course such a system of grading as I have described would have beenimpracticable applied to the small industrial concerns of your day, insome of which there were hardly enough employees to have left oneapiece for the classes. You must remember that, under the nationalorganization of labor, all industries are carried on by great bodies ofmen, many of your farms or shops being combined as one. It is alsoowing solely to the vast scale on which each industry is organized, with co-ordinate establishments in every part of the country, that weare able by exchanges and transfers to fit every man so nearly with thesort of work he can do best. 

"And now, Mr. West, I will leave it to you, on the bare outline of itsfeatures which I have given, if those who need special incentives to dotheir best are likely to lack them under our system. Does it not seemto you that men who found themselves obliged, whether they wished ornot, to work, would under such a system be strongly impelled to dotheir best?"

I replied that it seemed to me the incentives offered were, if anyobjection were to be made, too strong; that the pace set for the youngmen was too hot; and such, indeed, I would add with deference, stillremains my opinion, now that by longer residence among you I becomebetter acquainted with the whole subject. 

Dr. Leete, however, desired me to reflect, and I am ready to say thatit is perhaps a sufficient reply to my objection, that the worker'slivelihood is in no way dependent on his ranking, and anxiety for thatnever embitters his disappointments; that the working hours are short, the vacations regular, and that all emulation ceases at forty-five, with the attainment of middle life. 

"There are two or three other points I ought to refer to, " he added, "to prevent your getting mistaken impressions. In the first place, youmust understand that this system of preferment given the more efficientworkers over the less so, in no way contravenes the fundamental idea ofour social system, that all who do their best are equally deserving, whether that best be great or small. I have shown that the system isarranged to encourage the weaker as well as the stronger with the hopeof rising, while the fact that the stronger are selected for theleaders is in no way a reflection upon the weaker, but in the interestof the common weal. 

"Do not imagine, either, because emulation is given free play as anincentive under our system, that we deem it a motive likely to appealto the nobler sort of men, or worthy of them. Such as these find theirmotives within, not without, and measure their duty by their ownendowments, not by those of others. So long as their achievement isproportioned to their powers, they would consider it preposterous toexpect praise or blame because it chanced to be great or small. To suchnatures emulation appears philosophically absurd, and despicable in amoral aspect by its substitution of envy for admiration, and exultationfor regret, in one's attitude toward the successes and the failures ofothers. 

"But all men, even in the last year of the twentieth century, are notof this high order, and the incentives to endeavor requisite for thosewho are not must be of a sort adapted to their inferior natures. Forthese, then, emulation of the keenest edge is provided as a constantspur. Those who need this motive will feel it. Those who are above itsinfluence do not need it. 

"I should not fail to mention, " resumed the doctor, "that for those toodeficient in mental or bodily strength to be fairly graded with themain body of workers, we have a separate grade, unconnected with theothers, --a sort of invalid corps, the members of which are providedwith a light class of tasks fitted to their strength. All our sick inmind and body, all our deaf and dumb, and lame and blind and crippled, and even our insane, belong to this invalid corps, and bear itsinsignia. The strongest often do nearly a man's work, the feeblest, ofcourse, nothing; but none who can do anything are willing quite to giveup. In their lucid intervals, even our insane are eager to do what theycan. "

"That is a pretty idea of the invalid corps, " I said. "Even a barbarianfrom the nineteenth century can appreciate that. It is a very gracefulway of disguising charity, and must be grateful to the feelings of itsrecipients. "

"Charity!" repeated Dr. Leete. "Did you suppose that we consider theincapable class we are talking of objects of charity?"

"Why, naturally, " I said, "inasmuch as they are incapable ofself-support. "

But here the doctor took me up quickly. 

"Who is capable of self-support?" he demanded. "There is no such thingin a civilized society as self-support. In a state of society sobarbarous as not even to know family cooperation, each individual maypossibly support himself, though even then for a part of his life only;but from the moment that men begin to live together, and constituteeven the rudest sort of society, self-support becomes impossible. Asmen grow more civilized, and the subdivision of occupations andservices is carried out, a complex mutual dependence becomes theuniversal rule. Every man, however solitary may seem his occupation, isa member of a vast industrial partnership, as large as the nation, aslarge as humanity. The necessity of mutual dependence should imply theduty and guarantee of mutual support; and that it did not in your dayconstituted the essential cruelty and unreason of your system. "

"That may all be so, " I replied, "but it does not touch the case ofthose who are unable to contribute anything to the product of industry. "

"Surely I told you this morning, at least I thought I did, " replied Dr. Leete, "that the right of a man to maintenance at the nation's tabledepends on the fact that he is a man, and not on the amount of healthand strength he may have, so long as he does his best. "

"You said so, " I answered, "but I supposed the rule applied only to theworkers of different ability. Does it also hold of those who can donothing at all?"

"Are they not also men?"

"I am to understand, then, that the lame, the blind, the sick, and theimpotent, are as well off as the most efficient and have the sameincome?"

"Certainly, " was the reply. 

"The idea of charity on such a scale, " I answered, "would have made ourmost enthusiastic philanthropists gasp. "

"If you had a sick brother at home, " replied Dr. Leete, "unable towork, would you feed him on less dainty food, and lodge and clothe himmore poorly, than yourself? More likely far, you would give him thepreference; nor would you think of calling it charity. Would not theword, in that connection, fill you with indignation?"

"Of course, " I replied; "but the cases are not parallel. There is asense, no doubt, in which all men are brothers; but this general sortof brotherhood is not to be compared, except for rhetorical purposes, to the brotherhood of blood, either as to its sentiment or itsobligations. "

"There speaks the nineteenth century!" exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Ah, Mr. West, there is no doubt as to the length of time that you slept. If Iwere to give you, in one sentence, a key to what may seem the mysteriesof our civilization as compared with that of your age, I should saythat it is the fact that the solidarity of the race and the brotherhoodof man, which to you were but fine phrases, are, to our thinking andfeeling, ties as real and as vital as physical fraternity. 

"But even setting that consideration aside, I do not see why it sosurprises you that those who cannot work are conceded the full right tolive on the produce of those who can. Even in your day, the duty ofmilitary service for the protection of the nation, to which ourindustrial service corresponds, while obligatory on those able todischarge it, did not operate to deprive of the privileges ofcitizenship those who were unable. They stayed at home, and wereprotected by those who fought, and nobody questioned their right to be, or thought less of them. So, now, the requirement of industrial servicefrom those able to render it does not operate to deprive of theprivileges of citizenship, which now implies the citizen's maintenance, him who cannot work. The worker is not a citizen because he works, butworks because he is a citizen. As you recognize the duty of the strongto fight for the weak, we, now that fighting is gone by, recognize hisduty to work for him. 

"A solution which leaves an unaccounted-for residuum is no solution atall; and our solution of the problem of human society would have beennone at all had it left the lame, the sick, and the blind outside withthe beasts, to fare as they might. Better far have left the strong andwell unprovided for than these burdened ones, toward whom every heartmust yearn, and for whom ease of mind and body should be provided, iffor no others. Therefore it is, as I told you this morning, that thetitle of every man, woman, and child to the means of existence rests onno basis less plain, broad, and simple than the fact that they arefellows of one race-members of one human family. The only coin currentis the image of God, and that is good for all we have. 

"I think there is no feature of the civilization of your epoch sorepugnant to modern ideas as the neglect with which you treated yourdependent classes. Even if you had no pity, no feeling of brotherhood, how was it that you did not see that you were robbing the incapableclass of their plain right in leaving them unprovided for?"

"I don't quite follow you there, " I said. "I admit the claim of thisclass to our pity, but how could they who produced nothing claim ashare of the product as a right?"

"How happened it, " was Dr. Leete's reply, "that your workers were ableto produce more than so many savages would have done? Was it not whollyon account of the heritage of the past knowledge and achievements ofthe race, the machinery of society, thousands of years in contriving, found by you ready-made to your hand? How did you come to be possessorsof this knowledge and this machinery, which represent nine parts to onecontributed by yourself in the value of your product? You inherited it, did you not? And were not these others, these unfortunate and crippledbrothers whom you cast out, joint inheritors, co-heirs with you? Whatdid you do with their share? Did you not rob them when you put them offwith crusts, who were entitled to sit with the heirs, and did you notadd insult to robbery when you called the crusts charity?

"Ah, Mr. West, " Dr. Leete continued, as I did not respond, "what I donot understand is, setting aside all considerations either of justiceor brotherly feeling toward the crippled and defective, how the workersof your day could have had any heart for their work, knowing that theirchildren, or grand-children, if unfortunate, would be deprived of thecomforts and even necessities of life. It is a mystery how men withchildren could favor a system under which they were rewarded beyondthose less endowed with bodily strength or mental power. For, by thesame discrimination by which the father profited, the son, for whom hewould give his life, being perchance weaker than others, might bereduced to crusts and beggary. How men dared leave children behindthem, I have never been able to understand. "

Note. --Although in his talk on the previous evening Dr. Leete hademphasized the pains taken to enable every man to ascertain and followhis natural bent in choosing an occupation, it was not till I learnedthat the worker's income is the same in all occupations that I realizedhow absolutely he may be counted on to do so, and thus, by selectingthe harness which sets most lightly on himself, find that in which hecan pull best. The failure of my age in any systematic or effective wayto develop and utilize the natural aptitudes of men for the industriesand intellectual avocations was one of the great wastes, as well as oneof the most common causes of unhappiness in that time. The vastmajority of my contemporaries, though nominally free to do so, neverreally chose their occupations at all, but were forced by circumstancesinto work for which they were relatively inefficient, because notnaturally fitted for it. The rich, in this respect, had littleadvantage over the poor. The latter, indeed, being generally deprivedof education, had no opportunity even to ascertain the naturalaptitudes they might have, and on account of their poverty were unableto develop them by cultivation even when ascertained. The liberal andtechnical professions, except by favorable accident, were shut to them, to their own great loss and that of the nation. On the other hand, thewell-to-do, although they could command education and opportunity, werescarcely less hampered by social prejudice, which forbade them topursue manual avocations, even when adapted to them, and destined them, whether fit or unfit, to the professions, thus wasting many anexcellent handicraftsman. Mercenary considerations, tempting men topursue money-making occupations for which they were unfit, instead ofless remunerative employments for which they were fit, were responsiblefor another vast perversion of talent. All these things now arechanged. Equal education and opportunity must needs bring to lightwhatever aptitudes a man has, and neither social prejudices normercenary considerations hamper him in the choice of his life work. 

Chapter 13

As Edith had promised he should do, Dr. Leete accompanied me to mybedroom when I retired, to instruct me as to the adjustment of themusical telephone. He showed how, by turning a screw, the volume of themusic could be made to fill the room, or die away to an echo so faintand far that one could scarcely be sure whether he heard or imaginedit. If, of two persons side by side, one desired to listen to music andthe other to sleep, it could be made audible to one and inaudible toanother. 

"I should strongly advise you to sleep if you can to-night, Mr. West, in preference to listening to the finest tunes in the world, " thedoctor said, after explaining these points. "In the trying experienceyou are just now passing through, sleep is a nerve tonic for whichthere is no substitute. "

Mindful of what had happened to me that very morning, I promised toheed his counsel. 

"Very well, " he said, "then I will set the telephone at eight o'clock. "

"What do you mean?" I asked. 

He explained that, by a clock-work combination, a person could arrangeto be awakened at any hour by the music. 

It began to appear, as has since fully proved to be the case, that Ihad left my tendency to insomnia behind me with the other discomfortsof existence in the nineteenth century; for though I took no sleepingdraught this time, yet, as the night before, I had no sooner touchedthe pillow than I was asleep. 

I dreamed that I sat on the throne of the Abencerrages in thebanqueting hall of the Alhambra, feasting my lords and generals, whonext day were to follow the crescent against the Christian dogs ofSpain. The air, cooled by the spray of fountains, was heavy with thescent of flowers. A band of Nautch girls, round-limbed andluscious-lipped, danced with voluptuous grace to the music of brazenand stringed instruments. Looking up to the latticed galleries, onecaught a gleam now and then from the eye of some beauty of the royalharem, looking down upon the assembled flower of Moorish chivalry. Louder and louder clashed the cymbals, wilder and wilder grew thestrain, till the blood of the desert race could no longer resist themartial delirium, and the swart nobles leaped to their feet; a thousandscimetars were bared, and the cry, "Allah il Allah!" shook the hall andawoke me, to find it broad daylight, and the room tingling with theelectric music of the "Turkish Reveille. "

At the breakfast-table, when I told my host of my morning's experience, I learned that it was not a mere chance that the piece of music whichawakened me was a reveille. The airs played at one of the halls duringthe waking hours of the morning were always of an inspiring type. 

"By the way, " I said, "I have not thought to ask you anything about thestate of Europe. Have the societies of the Old World also beenremodeled?"

"Yes, " replied Dr. Leete, "the great nations of Europe as well asAustralia, Mexico, and parts of South America, are now organizedindustrially like the United States, which was the pioneer of theevolution. The peaceful relations of these nations are assured by aloose form of federal union of world-wide extent. An internationalcouncil regulates the mutual intercourse and commerce of the members ofthe union and their joint policy toward the more backward races, whichare gradually being educated up to civilized institutions. Completeautonomy within its own limits is enjoyed by every nation. "

"How do you carry on commerce without money?" I said. "In trading withother nations, you must use some sort of money, although you dispensewith it in the internal affairs of the nation. "

"Oh, no; money is as superfluous in our foreign as in our internalrelations. When foreign commerce was conducted by private enterprise, money was necessary to adjust it on account of the multifariouscomplexity of the transactions; but nowadays it is a function of thenations as units. There are thus only a dozen or so merchants in theworld, and their business being supervised by the internationalcouncil, a simple system of book accounts serves perfectly to regulatetheir dealings. Customs duties of every sort are of course superfluous. A nation simply does not import what its government does not thinkrequisite for the general interest. Each nation has a bureau of foreignexchange, which manages its trading. For example, the American bureau, estimating such and such quantities of French goods necessary toAmerica for a given year, sends the order to the French bureau, whichin turn sends its order to our bureau. The same is done mutually by allthe nations. "

"But how are the prices of foreign goods settled, since there is nocompetition?"

"The price at which one nation supplies another with goods, " repliedDr. Leete, "must be that at which it supplies its own citizens. So yousee there is no danger of misunderstanding. Of course no nation istheoretically bound to supply another with the product of its ownlabor, but it is for the interest of all to exchange some commodities. If a nation is regularly supplying another with certain goods, noticeis required from either side of any important change in the relation. "

"But what if a nation, having a monopoly of some natural product, should refuse to supply it to the others, or to one of them?"

"Such a case has never occurred, and could not without doing therefusing party vastly more harm than the others, " replied Dr. Leete. "In the fist place, no favoritism could be legally shown. The lawrequires that each nation shall deal with the others, in all respects, on exactly the same footing. Such a course as you suggest would cut offthe nation adopting it from the remainder of the earth for all purposeswhatever. The contingency is one that need not give us much anxiety. "

"But, " said I, "supposing a nation, having a natural monopoly in someproduct of which it exports more than it consumes, should put the priceaway up, and thus, without cutting off the supply, make a profit out ofits neighbors' necessities? Its own citizens would of course have topay the higher price on that commodity, but as a body would make moreout of foreigners than they would be out of pocket themselves. "

"When you come to know how prices of all commodities are determinednowadays, you will perceive how impossible it is that they could bealtered, except with reference to the amount or arduousness of the workrequired respectively to produce them, " was Dr. Leete's reply. "Thisprinciple is an international as well as a national guarantee; but evenwithout it the sense of community of interest, international as well asnational, and the conviction of the folly of selfishness, are too deepnowadays to render possible such a piece of sharp practice as youapprehend. You must understand that we all look forward to an eventualunification of the world as one nation. That, no doubt, will be theultimate form of society, and will realize certain economic advantagesover the present federal system of autonomous nations. Meanwhile, however, the present system works so nearly perfectly that we are quitecontent to leave to posterity the completion of the scheme. There are, indeed, some who hold that it never will be completed, on the groundthat the federal plan is not merely a provisional solution of theproblem of human society, but the best ultimate solution. "

"How do you manage, " I asked, "when the books of any two nations do notbalance? Supposing we import more from France than we export to her. "

"At the end of each year, " replied the doctor, "the books of everynation are examined. If France is found in our debt, probably we are inthe debt of some nation which owes France, and so on with all thenations. The balances that remain after the accounts have been clearedby the international council should not be large under our system. Whatever they may be, the council requires them to be settled every fewyears, and may require their settlement at any time if they are gettingtoo large; for it is not intended that any nation shall run largely indebt to another, lest feelings unfavorable to amity should beengendered. To guard further against this, the international councilinspects the commodities interchanged by the nations, to see that theyare of perfect quality. "

"But what are the balances finally settled with, seeing that you haveno money?"

"In national staples; a basis of agreement as to what staples shall beaccepted, and in what proportions, for settlement of accounts, being apreliminary to trade relations. "

"Emigration is another point I want to ask you about, " said I. "Withevery nation organized as a close industrial partnership, monopolizingall means of production in the country, the emigrant, even if he werepermitted to land, would starve. I suppose there is no emigrationnowadays. "

"On the contrary, there is constant emigration, by which I suppose youmean removal to foreign countries for permanent residence, " replied Dr. Leete. "It is arranged on a simple international arrangement ofindemnities. For example, if a man at twenty-one emigrates from Englandto America, England loses all the expense of his maintenance andeducation, and America gets a workman for nothing. America accordinglymakes England an allowance. The same principle, varied to suit thecase, applies generally. If the man is near the term of his labor whenhe emigrates, the country receiving him has the allowance. As toimbecile persons, it is deemed best that each nation should beresponsible for its own, and the emigration of such must be under fullguarantees of support by his own nation. Subject to these regulations, the right of any man to emigrate at any time is unrestricted. "

"But how about mere pleasure trips; tours of observation? How can astranger travel in a country whose people do not receive money, and arethemselves supplied with the means of life on a basis not extended tohim? His own credit card cannot, of course, be good in other lands. Howdoes he pay his way?"

"An American credit card, " replied Dr. Leete, "is just as good inEurope as American gold used to be, and on precisely the samecondition, namely, that it be exchanged into the currency of thecountry you are traveling in. An American in Berlin takes his creditcard to the local office of the international council, and receives inexchange for the whole or part of it a German credit card, the amountbeing charged against the United States in favor of Germany on theinternational account. "

"Perhaps Mr. West would like to dine at the Elephant to-day, " saidEdith, as we left the table. 

"That is the name we give to the general dining-house in our ward, "explained her father. "Not only is our cooking done at the publickitchens, as I told you last night, but the service and quality of themeals are much more satisfactory if taken at the dining-house. The twominor meals of the day are usually taken at home, as not worth thetrouble of going out; but it is general to go out to dine. We have notdone so since you have been with us, from a notion that it would bebetter to wait till you had become a little more familiar with ourways. What do you think? Shall we take dinner at the dining-houseto-day?"

I said that I should be very much pleased to do so. 

Not long after, Edith came to me, smiling, and said:

"Last night, as I was thinking what I could do to make you feel at homeuntil you came to be a little more used to us and our ways, an ideaoccurred to me. What would you say if I were to introduce you to somevery nice people of your own times, whom I am sure you used to be wellacquainted with?"

I replied, rather vaguely, that it would certainly be very agreeable, but I did not see how she was going to manage it. 

"Come with me, " was her smiling reply, "and see if I am not as good asmy word. "

My susceptibility to surprise had been pretty well exhausted by thenumerous shocks it had received, but it was with some wonderment that Ifollowed her into a room which I had not before entered. It was asmall, cosy apartment, walled with cases filled with books. 

"Here are your friends, " said Edith, indicating one of the cases, andas my eye glanced over the names on the backs of the volumes, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, Defoe, Dickens, Thackeray, Hugo, Hawthorne, Irving, and a score of other great writersof my time and all time, I understood her meaning. She had indeed madegood her promise in a sense compared with which its literal fulfillmentwould have been a disappointment. She had introduced me to a circle offriends whom the century that had elapsed since last I communed withthem had aged as little as it had myself. Their spirit was as high, their wit as keen, their laughter and their tears as contagious, aswhen their speech had whiled away the hours of a former century. LonelyI was not and could not be more, with this goodly companionship, however wide the gulf of years that gaped between me and my old life. 

"You are glad I brought you here, " exclaimed Edith, radiant, as sheread in my face the success of her experiment. "It was a good idea, wasit not, Mr. West? How stupid in me not to think of it before! I willleave you now with your old friends, for I know there will be nocompany for you like them just now; but remember you must not let oldfriends make you quite forget new ones!" and with that smiling cautionshe left me. 

Attracted by the most familiar of the names before me, I laid my handon a volume of Dickens, and sat down to read. He had been my primefavorite among the bookwriters of the century, --I mean the nineteenthcentury, --and a week had rarely passed in my old life during which Ihad not taken up some volume of his works to while away an idle hour. Any volume with which I had been familiar would have produced anextraordinary impression, read under my present circumstances, but myexceptional familiarity with Dickens, and his consequent power to callup the associations of my former life, gave to his writings an effectno others could have had, to intensify, by force of contrast, myappreciation of the strangeness of my present environment. However newand astonishing one's surroundings, the tendency is to become a part ofthem so soon that almost from the first the power to see themobjectively and fully measure their strangeness, is lost. That power, already dulled in my case, the pages of Dickens restored by carrying meback through their associations to the standpoint of my former life. 

With a clearness which I had not been able before to attain, I saw nowthe past and present, like contrasting pictures, side by side. 

The genius of the great novelist of the nineteenth century, like thatof Homer, might indeed defy time; but the setting of his pathetictales, the misery of the poor, the wrongs of power, the pitilesscruelty of the system of society, had passed away as utterly as Circeand the sirens, Charybdis and Cyclops. 

During the hour or two that I sat there with Dickens open before me, Idid not actually read more than a couple of pages. Every paragraph, every phrase, brought up some new aspect of the world-transformationwhich had taken place, and led my thoughts on long and widely ramifyingexcursions. As meditating thus in Dr. Leete's library I graduallyattained a more clear and coherent idea of the prodigious spectaclewhich I had been so strangely enabled to view, I was filled with adeepening wonder at the seeming capriciousness of the fate that hadgiven to one who so little deserved it, or seemed in any way set apartfor it, the power alone among his contemporaries to stand upon theearth in this latter day. I had neither foreseen the new world nortoiled for it, as many about me had done regardless of the scorn offools or the misconstruction of the good. Surely it would have beenmore in accordance with the fitness of things had one of thoseprophetic and strenuous souls been enabled to see the travail of hissoul and be satisfied; he, for example, a thousand times rather than I, who, having beheld in a vision the world I looked on, sang of it inwords that again and again, during these last wondrous days, had rungin my mind:

 For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled. In the Parliament of man, the federation of the world. 

 Then the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. 

What though, in his old age, he momentarily lost faith in his ownprediction, as prophets in their hours of depression and doubtgenerally do; the words had remained eternal testimony to the seershipof a poet's heart, the insight that is given to faith. 

I was still in the library when some hours later Dr. Leete sought methere. "Edith told me of her idea, " he said, "and I thought it anexcellent one. I had a little curiosity what writer you would firstturn to. Ah, Dickens! You admired him, then! That is where we modernsagree with you. Judged by our standards, he overtops all the writers ofhis age, not because his literary genius was highest, but because hisgreat heart beat for the poor, because he made the cause of the victimsof society his own, and devoted his pen to exposing its cruelties andshams. No man of his time did so much as he to turn men's minds to thewrong and wretchedness of the old order of things, and open their eyesto the necessity of the great change that was coming, although hehimself did not clearly foresee it. "

Chapter 14

A heavy rainstorm came up during the day, and I had concluded that thecondition of the streets would be such that my hosts would have to giveup the idea of going out to dinner, although the dining-hall I hadunderstood to be quite near. I was much surprised when at the dinnerhour the ladies appeared prepared to go out, but without either rubbersor umbrellas. 

The mystery was explained when we found ourselves on the street, for acontinuous waterproof covering had been let down so as to inclose thesidewalk and turn it into a well lighted and perfectly dry corridor, which was filled with a stream of ladies and gentlemen dressed fordinner. At the comers the entire open space was similarly roofed in. Edith Leete, with whom I walked, seemed much interested in learningwhat appeared to be entirely new to her, that in the stormy weather thestreets of the Boston of my day had been impassable, except to personsprotected by umbrellas, boots, and heavy clothing. "Were sidewalkcoverings not used at all?" she asked. They were used, I explained, butin a scattered and utterly unsystematic way, being private enterprises. She said to me that at the present time all the streets were providedagainst inclement weather in the manner I saw, the apparatus beingrolled out of the way when it was unnecessary. She intimated that itwould be considered an extraordinary imbecility to permit the weatherto have any effect on the social movements of the people. 

Dr. Leete, who was walking ahead, overhearing something of our talk, turned to say that the difference between the age of individualism andthat of concert was well characterized by the fact that, in thenineteenth century, when it rained, the people of Boston put up threehundred thousand umbrellas over as many heads, and in the twentiethcentury they put up one umbrella over all the heads. 

As we walked on, Edith said, "The private umbrella is father's favoritefigure to illustrate the old way when everybody lived for himself andhis family. There is a nineteenth century painting at the Art Galleryrepresenting a crowd of people in the rain, each one holding hisumbrella over himself and his wife, and giving his neighbors thedrippings, which he claims must have been meant by the artist as asatire on his times. "

We now entered a large building into which a stream of people waspouring. I could not see the front, owing to the awning, but, if incorrespondence with the interior, which was even finer than the store Ivisited the day before, it would have been magnificent. My companionsaid that the sculptured group over the entrance was especiallyadmired. Going up a grand staircase we walked some distance along abroad corridor with many doors opening upon it. At one of these, whichbore my host's name, we turned in, and I found myself in an elegantdining-room containing a table for four. Windows opened on a courtyardwhere a fountain played to a great height and music made the airelectric. 

"You seem at home here, " I said, as we seated ourselves at table, andDr. Leete touched an annunciator. 

"This is, in fact, a part of our house, slightly detached from therest, " he replied. "Every family in the ward has a room set apart inthis great building for its permanent and exclusive use for a smallannual rental. For transient guests and individuals there isaccommodation on another floor. If we expect to dine here, we put inour orders the night before, selecting anything in market, according tothe daily reports in the papers. The meal is as expensive or as simpleas we please, though of course everything is vastly cheaper as well asbetter than it would be prepared at home. There is actually nothingwhich our people take more interest in than the perfection of thecatering and cooking done for them, and I admit that we are a littlevain of the success that has been attained by this branch of theservice. Ah, my dear Mr. West, though other aspects of yourcivilization were more tragical, I can imagine that none could havebeen more depressing than the poor dinners you had to eat, that is, allof you who had not great wealth. "

"You would have found none of us disposed to disagree with you on thatpoint, " I said. 

The waiter, a fine-looking young fellow, wearing a slightly distinctiveuniform, now made his appearance. I observed him closely, as it was thefirst time I had been able to study particularly the bearing of one ofthe enlisted members of the industrial army. This young man, I knewfrom what I had been told, must be highly educated, and the equal, socially and in all respects, of those he served. But it was perfectlyevident that to neither side was the situation in the slightest degreeembarrassing. Dr. Leete addressed the young man in a tone devoid, ofcourse, as any gentleman's would be, of superciliousness, but at thesame time not in any way deprecatory, while the manner of the young manwas simply that of a person intent on discharging correctly the task hewas engaged in, equally without familiarity or obsequiousness. It was, in fact, the manner of a soldier on duty, but without the militarystiffness. As the youth left the room, I said, "I cannot get over mywonder at seeing a young man like that serving so contentedly in amenial position. "

"What is that word 'menial'? I never heard it, " said Edith. 

"It is obsolete now, " remarked her father. "If I understand it rightly, it applied to persons who performed particularly disagreeable andunpleasant tasks for others, and carried with it an implication ofcontempt. Was it not so, Mr. West?"

"That is about it, " I said. "Personal service, such as waiting ontables, was considered menial, and held in such contempt, in my day, that persons of culture and refinement would suffer hardship beforecondescending to it. "

"What a strangely artificial idea, " exclaimed Mrs. Leete wonderingly. 

"And yet these services had to be rendered, " said Edith. 

"Of course, " I replied. "But we imposed them on the poor, and those whohad no alternative but starvation. "

"And increased the burden you imposed on them by adding your contempt, "remarked Dr. Leete. 

"I don't think I clearly understand, " said Edith. "Do you mean that youpermitted people to do things for you which you despised them fordoing, or that you accepted services from them which you would havebeen unwilling to render them? You can't surely mean that, Mr. West?"

I was obliged to tell her that the fact was just as she had stated. Dr. Leete, however, came to my relief. 

"To understand why Edith is surprised, " he said, "you must know thatnowadays it is an axiom of ethics that to accept a service from anotherwhich we would be unwilling to return in kind, if need were, is likeborrowing with the intention of not repaying, while to enforce such aservice by taking advantage of the poverty or necessity of a personwould be an outrage like forcible robbery. It is the worst thing aboutany system which divides men, or allows them to be divided, intoclasses and castes, that it weakens the sense of a common humanity. Unequal distribution of wealth, and, still more effectually, unequalopportunities of education and culture, divided society in your dayinto classes which in many respects regarded each other as distinctraces. There is not, after all, such a difference as might appearbetween our ways of looking at this question of service. Ladies andgentlemen of the cultured class in your day would no more havepermitted persons of their own class to render them services they wouldscorn to return than we would permit anybody to do so. The poor and theuncultured, however, they looked upon as of another kind fromthemselves. The equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture whichall persons now enjoy have simply made us all members of one class, which corresponds to the most fortunate class with you. Until thisequality of condition had come to pass, the idea of the solidarity ofhumanity, the brotherhood of all men, could never have become the realconviction and practical principle of action it is nowadays. In yourday the same phrases were indeed used, but they were phrases merely. "

"Do the waiters, also, volunteer?"

"No, " replied Dr. Leete. "The waiters are young men in the unclassifiedgrade of the industrial army who are assignable to all sorts ofmiscellaneous occupations not requiring special skill. Waiting on tableis one of these, and every young recruit is given a taste of it. Imyself served as a waiter for several months in this very dining-housesome forty years ago. Once more you must remember that there isrecognized no sort of difference between the dignity of the differentsorts of work required by the nation. The individual is never regarded, nor regards himself, as the servant of those he serves, nor is he inany way dependent upon them. It is always the nation which he isserving. No difference is recognized between a waiter's functions andthose of any other worker. The fact that his is a personal service isindifferent from our point of view. So is a doctor's. I should as soonexpect our waiter today to look down on me because I served him as adoctor, as think of looking down on him because he serves me as awaiter. "

After dinner my entertainers conducted me about the building, of whichthe extent, the magnificent architecture and richness of embellishment, astonished me. It seemed that it was not merely a dining-hall, butlikewise a great pleasure-house and social rendezvous of the quarter, and no appliance of entertainment or recreation seemed lacking. 

"You find illustrated here, " said Dr. Leete, when I had expressed myadmiration, "what I said to you in our first conversation, when youwere looking out over the city, as to the splendor of our public andcommon life as compared with the simplicity of our private and homelife, and the contrast which, in this respect, the twentieth bears tothe nineteenth century. To save ourselves useless burdens, we have aslittle gear about us at home as is consistent with comfort, but thesocial side of our life is ornate and luxurious beyond anything theworld ever knew before. All the industrial and professional guilds haveclubhouses as extensive as this, as well as country, mountain, andseaside houses for sport and rest in vacations. "

NOTE. In the latter part of the nineteenth century it became a practiceof needy young men at some of the colleges of the country to earn alittle money for their term bills by serving as waiters on tables athotels during the long summer vacation. It was claimed, in reply tocritics who expressed the prejudices of the time in asserting thatpersons voluntarily following such an occupation could not begentlemen, that they were entitled to praise for vindicating, by theirexample, the dignity of all honest and necessary labor. The use of thisargument illustrates a common confusion in thought on the part of myformer contemporaries. The business of waiting on tables was in no moreneed of defense than most of the other ways of getting a living in thatday, but to talk of dignity attaching to labor of any sort under thesystem then prevailing was absurd. There is no way in which sellinglabor for the highest price it will fetch is more dignified thanselling goods for what can be got. Both were commercial transactions tobe judged by the commercial standard. By setting a price in money onhis service, the worker accepted the money measure for it, andrenounced all clear claim to be judged by any other. The sordid taintwhich this necessity imparted to the noblest and the highest sorts ofservice was bitterly resented by generous souls, but there was noevading it. There was no exemption, however transcendent the quality ofone's service, from the necessity of haggling for its price in themarket-place. The physician must sell his healing and the apostle hispreaching like the rest. The prophet, who had guessed the meaning ofGod, must dicker for the price of the revelation, and the poet hawk hisvisions in printers' row. If I were asked to name the mostdistinguishing felicity of this age, as compared to that in which Ifirst saw the light, I should say that to me it seems to consist in thedignity you have given to labor by refusing to set a price upon it andabolishing the market-place forever. By requiring of every man his bestyou have made God his task-master, and by making honor the sole rewardof achievement you have imparted to all service the distinctionpeculiar in my day to the soldier's. 

Chapter 15

When, in the course of our tour of inspection, we came to the library, we succumbed to the temptation of the luxurious leather chairs withwhich it was furnished, and sat down in one of the book-lined alcovesto rest and chat awhile. [1]

"Edith tells me that you have been in the library all the morning, "said Mrs. Leete. "Do you know, it seems to me, Mr. West, that you arethe most enviable of mortals. "

"I should like to know just why, " I replied. 

"Because the books of the last hundred years will be new to you, " sheanswered. "You will have so much of the most absorbing literature toread as to leave you scarcely time for meals these five years to come. Ah, what would I give if I had not already read Berrian's novels. "

"Or Nesmyth's, mamma, " added Edith. 

"Yes, or Oates' poems, or 'Past and Present, ' or, 'In the Beginning, 'or--oh, I could name a dozen books, each worth a year of one's life, "declared Mrs. Leete, enthusiastically. 

"I judge, then, that there has been some notable literature produced inthis century. "

"Yes, " said Dr. Leete. "It has been an era of unexampled intellectualsplendor. Probably humanity never before passed through a moral andmaterial evolution, at once so vast in its scope and brief in its timeof accomplishment, as that from the old order to the new in the earlypart of this century. When men came to realize the greatness of thefelicity which had befallen them, and that the change through whichthey had passed was not merely an improvement in details of theircondition, but the rise of the race to a new plane of existence with anillimitable vista of progress, their minds were affected in all theirfaculties with a stimulus, of which the outburst of the mediaevalrenaissance offers a suggestion but faint indeed. There ensued an eraof mechanical invention, scientific discovery, art, musical andliterary productiveness to which no previous age of the world offersanything comparable. "

"By the way, " said I, "talking of literature, how are books publishednow? Is that also done by the nation?"

"Certainly. "

"But how do you manage it? Does the government publish everything thatis brought it as a matter of course, at the public expense, or does itexercise a censorship and print only what it approves?"

"Neither way. The printing department has no censorial powers. It isbound to print all that is offered it, but prints it only on conditionthat the author defray the first cost out of his credit. He must payfor the privilege of the public ear, and if he has any message worthhearing we consider that he will be glad to do it. Of course, ifincomes were unequal, as in the old times, this rule would enable onlythe rich to be authors, but the resources of citizens being equal, itmerely measures the strength of the author's motive. The cost of anedition of an average book can be saved out of a year's credit by thepractice of economy and some sacrifices. The book, on being published, is placed on sale by the nation. "

"The author receiving a royalty on the sales as with us, I suppose, " Isuggested. 

"Not as with you, certainly, " replied Dr. Leete, "but nevertheless inone way. The price of every book is made up of the cost of itspublication with a royalty for the author. The author fixes thisroyalty at any figure he pleases. Of course if he puts it unreasonablyhigh it is his own loss, for the book will not sell. The amount of thisroyalty is set to his credit and he is discharged from other service tothe nation for so long a period as this credit at the rate of allowancefor the support of citizens shall suffice to support him. If his bookbe moderately successful, he has thus a furlough for several months, ayear, two or three years, and if he in the mean time produces othersuccessful work, the remission of service is extended so far as thesale of that may justify. An author of much acceptance succeeds insupporting himself by his pen during the entire period of service, andthe degree of any writer's literary ability, as determined by thepopular voice, is thus the measure of the opportunity given him todevote his time to literature. In this respect the outcome of oursystem is not very dissimilar to that of yours, but there are twonotable differences. In the first place, the universally high level ofeducation nowadays gives the popular verdict a conclusiveness on thereal merit of literary work which in your day it was as far as possiblefrom having. In the second place, there is no such thing now asfavoritism of any sort to interfere with the recognition of true merit. Every author has precisely the same facilities for bringing his workbefore the popular tribunal. To judge from the complaints of thewriters of your day, this absolute equality of opportunity would havebeen greatly prized. "

"In the recognition of merit in other fields of original genius, suchas music, art, invention, design, " I said, "I suppose you follow asimilar principle. "

"Yes, " he replied, "although the details differ. In art, for example, as in literature, the people are the sole judges. They vote upon theacceptance of statues and paintings for the public buildings, and theirfavorable verdict carries with it the artist's remission from othertasks to devote himself to his vocation. On copies of his work disposedof, he also derives the same advantage as the author on sales of hisbooks. In all these lines of original genius the plan pursued is thesame to offer a free field to aspirants, and as soon as exceptionaltalent is recognized to release it from all trammels and let it havefree course. The remission of other service in these cases is notintended as a gift or reward, but as the means of obtaining more andhigher service. Of course there are various literary, art, andscientific institutes to which membership comes to the famous and isgreatly prized. The highest of all honors in the nation, higher thanthe presidency, which calls merely for good sense and devotion to duty, is the red ribbon awarded by the vote of the people to the greatauthors, artists, engineers, physicians, and inventors of thegeneration. Not over a certain number wear it at any one time, thoughevery bright young fellow in the country loses innumerable nights'sleep dreaming of it. I even did myself. "

"Just as if mamma and I would have thought any more of you with it, "exclaimed Edith; "not that it isn't, of course, a very fine thing tohave. "

"You had no choice, my dear, but to take your father as you found himand make the best of him, " Dr. Leete replied; "but as for your mother, there, she would never have had me if I had not assured her that I wasbound to get the red ribbon or at least the blue. "

On this extravagance Mrs. Leete's only comment was a smile. 

"How about periodicals and newspapers?" I said. "I won't deny that yourbook publishing system is a considerable improvement on ours, both asto its tendency to encourage a real literary vocation, and, quite asimportant, to discourage mere scribblers; but I don't see how it can bemade to apply to magazines and newspapers. It is very well to make aman pay for publishing a book, because the expense will be onlyoccasional; but no man could afford the expense of publishing anewspaper every day in the year. It took the deep pockets of ourprivate capitalists to do that, and often exhausted even them beforethe returns came in. If you have newspapers at all, they must, I fancy, be published by the government at the public expense, with governmenteditors, reflecting government opinions. Now, if your system is soperfect that there is never anything to criticize in the conduct ofaffairs, this arrangement may answer. Otherwise I should think the lackof an independent unofficial medium for the expression of publicopinion would have most unfortunate results. Confess, Dr. Leete, that afree newspaper press, with all that it implies, was a redeemingincident of the old system when capital was in private hands, and thatyou have to set off the loss of that against your gains in otherrespects. "

"I am afraid I can't give you even that consolation, " replied Dr. Leete, laughing. "In the first place, Mr. West, the newspaper press isby no means the only or, as we look at it, the best vehicle for seriouscriticism of public affairs. To us, the judgments of your newspapers onsuch themes seem generally to have been crude and flippant, as well asdeeply tinctured with prejudice and bitterness. In so far as they maybe taken as expressing public opinion, they give an unfavorableimpression of the popular intelligence, while so far as they may haveformed public opinion, the nation was not to be felicitated. Nowadays, when a citizen desires to make a serious impression upon the publicmind as to any aspect of public affairs, he comes out with a book orpamphlet, published as other books are. But this is not because we lacknewspapers and magazines, or that they lack the most absolute freedom. The newspaper press is organized so as to be a more perfect expressionof public opinion than it possibly could be in your day, when privatecapital controlled and managed it primarily as a money-making business, and secondarily only as a mouthpiece for the people. "

"But, " said I, "if the government prints the papers at the publicexpense, how can it fail to control their policy? Who appoints theeditors, if not the government?"

"The government does not pay the expense of the papers, nor appointtheir editors, nor in any way exert the slightest influence on theirpolicy, " replied Dr. Leete. "The people who take the paper pay theexpense of its publication, choose its editor, and remove him whenunsatisfactory. You will scarcely say, I think, that such a newspaperpress is not a free organ of popular opinion. "

"Decidedly I shall not, " I replied, "but how is it practicable?"

"Nothing could be simpler. Supposing some of my neighbors or myselfthink we ought to have a newspaper reflecting our opinions, and devotedespecially to our locality, trade, or profession. We go about among thepeople till we get the names of such a number that their annualsubscriptions will meet the cost of the paper, which is little or bigaccording to the largeness of its constituency. The amount of thesubscriptions marked off the credits of the citizens guarantees thenation against loss in publishing the paper, its business, youunderstand, being that of a publisher purely, with no option to refusethe duty required. The subscribers to the paper now elect somebody aseditor, who, if he accepts the office, is discharged from other serviceduring his incumbency. Instead of paying a salary to him, as in yourday, the subscribers pay the nation an indemnity equal to the cost ofhis support for taking him away from the general service. He managesthe paper just as one of your editors did, except that he has nocounting-room to obey, or interests of private capital as against thepublic good to defend. At the end of the first year, the subscribersfor the next either re-elect the former editor or choose any one elseto his place. An able editor, of course, keeps his place indefinitely. As the subscription list enlarges, the funds of the paper increase, andit is improved by the securing of more and better contributors, just asyour papers were. "

"How is the staff of contributors recompensed, since they cannot bepaid in money?"

"The editor settles with them the price of their wares. The amount istransferred to their individual credit from the guarantee credit of thepaper, and a remission of service is granted the contributor for alength of time corresponding to the amount credited him, just as toother authors. As to magazines, the system is the same. Thoseinterested in the prospectus of a new periodical pledge enoughsubscriptions to run it for a year; select their editor, whorecompenses his contributors just as in the other case, the printingbureau furnishing the necessary force and material for publication, asa matter of course. When an editor's services are no longer desired, ifhe cannot earn the right to his time by other literary work, he simplyresumes his place in the industrial army. I should add that, thoughordinarily the editor is elected only at the end of the year, and as arule is continued in office for a term of years, in case of any suddenchange he should give to the tone of the paper, provision is made fortaking the sense of the subscribers as to his removal at any time. "

"However earnestly a man may long for leisure for purposes of study ormeditation, " I remarked, "he cannot get out of the harness, if Iunderstand you rightly, except in these two ways you have mentioned. Hemust either by literary, artistic, or inventive productivenessindemnify the nation for the loss of his services, or must get asufficient number of other people to contribute to such an indemnity. "

"It is most certain, " replied Dr. Leete, "that no able-bodied mannowadays can evade his share of work and live on the toil of others, whether he calls himself by the fine name of student or confesses tobeing simply lazy. At the same time our system is elastic enough togive free play to every instinct of human nature which does not aim atdominating others or living on the fruit of others' labor. There is notonly the remission by indemnification but the remission by abnegation. Any man in his thirty-third year, his term of service being then halfdone, can obtain an honorable discharge from the army, provided heaccepts for the rest of his life one half the rate of maintenance othercitizens receive. It is quite possible to live on this amount, thoughone must forego the luxuries and elegancies of life, with some, perhaps, of its comforts. "

When the ladies retired that evening, Edith brought me a book and said:

"If you should be wakeful to-night, Mr. West, you might be interestedin looking over this story by Berrian. It is considered hismasterpiece, and will at least give you an idea what the storiesnowadays are like. "

I sat up in my room that night reading "Penthesilia" till it grew grayin the east, and did not lay it down till I had finished it. And yetlet no admirer of the great romancer of the twentieth century resent mysaying that at the first reading what most impressed me was not so muchwhat was in the book as what was left out of it. The story-writers ofmy day would have deemed the making of bricks without straw a lighttask compared with the construction of a romance from which should beexcluded all effects drawn from the contrasts of wealth and poverty, education and ignorance, coarseness and refinement, high and low, allmotives drawn from social pride and ambition, the desire of beingricher or the fear of being poorer, together with sordid anxieties ofany sort for one's self or others; a romance in which there should, indeed, be love galore, but love unfretted by artificial barrierscreated by differences of station or possessions, owning no other lawbut that of the heart. The reading of "Penthesilia" was of more valuethan almost any amount of explanation would have been in giving mesomething like a general impression of the social aspect of thetwentieth century. The information Dr. Leete had imparted was indeedextensive as to facts, but they had affected my mind as so manyseparate impressions, which I had as yet succeeded but imperfectly inmaking cohere. Berrian put them together for me in a picture. 

[1] I cannot sufficiently celebrate the glorious liberty that reigns inthe public libraries of the twentieth century as compared with theintolerable management of those of the nineteenth century, in which thebooks were jealously railed away from the people, and obtainable onlyat an expenditure of time and red tape calculated to discourage anyordinary taste for literature. 

Chapter 16

Next morning I rose somewhat before the breakfast hour. As I descendedthe stairs, Edith stepped into the hall from the room which had beenthe scene of the morning interview between us described some chaptersback. 

"Ah!" she exclaimed, with a charmingly arch expression, "you thought toslip out unbeknown for another of those solitary morning rambles whichhave such nice effects on you. But you see I am up too early for youthis time. You are fairly caught. "

"You discredit the efficacy of your own cure, " I said, "by supposingthat such a ramble would now be attended with bad consequences. "

"I am very glad to hear that, " she said. "I was in here arranging someflowers for the breakfast table when I heard you come down, and fanciedI detected something surreptitious in your step on the stairs. "

"You did me injustice, " I replied. "I had no idea of going out at all. "

Despite her effort to convey an impression that my interception waspurely accidental, I had at the time a dim suspicion of what Iafterwards learned to be the fact, namely, that this sweet creature, inpursuance of her self-assumed guardianship over me, had risen for thelast two or three mornings at an unheard-of hour, to insure against thepossibility of my wandering off alone in case I should be affected ason the former occasion. Receiving permission to assist her in making upthe breakfast bouquet, I followed her into the room from which she hademerged. 

"Are you sure, " she asked, "that you are quite done with those terriblesensations you had that morning?"

"I can't say that I do not have times of feeling decidedly queer, " Ireplied, "moments when my personal identity seems an open question. Itwould be too much to expect after my experience that I should not havesuch sensations occasionally, but as for being carried entirely off myfeet, as I was on the point of being that morning, I think the dangeris past. "

"I shall never forget how you looked that morning, " she said. 

"If you had merely saved my life, " I continued, "I might, perhaps, findwords to express my gratitude, but it was my reason you saved, andthere are no words that would not belittle my debt to you. " I spokewith emotion, and her eyes grew suddenly moist. 

"It is too much to believe all this, " she said, "but it is verydelightful to hear you say it. What I did was very little. I was verymuch distressed for you, I know. Father never thinks anything ought toastonish us when it can be explained scientifically, as I suppose thislong sleep of yours can be, but even to fancy myself in your placemakes my head swim. I know that I could not have borne it at all. "

"That would depend, " I replied, "on whether an angel came to supportyou with her sympathy in the crisis of your condition, as one came tome. " If my face at all expressed the feelings I had a right to havetoward this sweet and lovely young girl, who had played so angelic arole toward me, its expression must have been very worshipful justthen. The expression or the words, or both together, caused her now todrop her eyes with a charming blush. 

"For the matter of that, " I said, "if your experience has not been asstartling as mine, it must have been rather overwhelming to see a manbelonging to a strange century, and apparently a hundred years dead, raised to life. "

"It seemed indeed strange beyond any describing at first, " she said, "but when we began to put ourselves in your place, and realize how muchstranger it must seem to you, I fancy we forgot our own feelings a gooddeal, at least I know I did. It seemed then not so much astounding asinteresting and touching beyond anything ever heard of before. "

"But does it not come over you as astounding to sit at table with me, seeing who I am?"

"You must remember that you do not seem so strange to us as we must toyou, " she answered. "We belong to a future of which you could not forman idea, a generation of which you knew nothing until you saw us. Butyou belong to a generation of which our forefathers were a part. Weknow all about it; the names of many of its members are household wordswith us. We have made a study of your ways of living and thinking;nothing you say or do surprises us, while we say and do nothing whichdoes not seem strange to you. So you see, Mr. West, that if you feelthat you can, in time, get accustomed to us, you must not be surprisedthat from the first we have scarcely found you strange at all. "

"I had not thought of it in that way, " I replied. "There is indeed muchin what you say. One can look back a thousand years easier than forwardfifty. A century is not so very long a retrospect. I might have knownyour great-grand-parents. Possibly I did. Did they live in Boston?"

"I believe so. "

"You are not sure, then?"

"Yes, " she replied. "Now I think, they did. "

"I had a very large circle of acquaintances in the city, " I said. "Itis not unlikely that I knew or knew of some of them. Perhaps I may haveknown them well. Wouldn't it be interesting if I should chance to beable to tell you all about your great-grandfather, for instance?"

"Very interesting. "

"Do you know your genealogy well enough to tell me who your forbearswere in the Boston of my day?"

"Oh, yes. "

"Perhaps, then, you will some time tell me what some of their nameswere. "

She was engrossed in arranging a troublesome spray of green, and didnot reply at once. Steps upon the stairway indicated that the othermembers of the family were descending. 

"Perhaps, some time, " she said. 

After breakfast, Dr. Leete suggested taking me to inspect the centralwarehouse and observe actually in operation the machinery ofdistribution, which Edith had described to me. As we walked away fromthe house I said, "It is now several days that I have been living inyour household on a most extraordinary footing, or rather on none atall. I have not spoken of this aspect of my position before becausethere were so many other aspects yet more extraordinary. But now that Iam beginning a little to feel my feet under me, and to realize that, however I came here, I am here, and must make the best of it, I mustspeak to you on this point. "

"As for your being a guest in my house, " replied Dr. Leete, "I pray younot to begin to be uneasy on that point, for I mean to keep you a longtime yet. With all your modesty, you can but realize that such a guestas yourself is an acquisition not willingly to be parted with. "

"Thanks, doctor, " I said. "It would be absurd, certainly, for me toaffect any oversensitiveness about accepting the temporary hospitalityof one to whom I owe it that I am not still awaiting the end of theworld in a living tomb. But if I am to be a permanent citizen of thiscentury I must have some standing in it. Now, in my time a person moreor less entering the world, however he got in, would not be noticed inthe unorganized throng of men, and might make a place for himselfanywhere he chose if he were strong enough. But nowadays everybody is apart of a system with a distinct place and function. I am outside thesystem, and don't see how I can get in; there seems no way to get in, except to be born in or to come in as an emigrant from some othersystem. "

Dr. Leete laughed heartily. 

"I admit, " he said, "that our system is defective in lacking provisionfor cases like yours, but you see nobody anticipated additions to theworld except by the usual process. You need, however, have no fear thatwe shall be unable to provide both a place and occupation for you indue time. You have as yet been brought in contact only with the membersof my family, but you must not suppose that I have kept your secret. Onthe contrary, your case, even before your resuscitation, and vastlymore since has excited the profoundest interest in the nation. In viewof your precarious nervous condition, it was thought best that I shouldtake exclusive charge of you at first, and that you should, through meand my family, receive some general idea of the sort of world you hadcome back to before you began to make the acquaintance generally of itsinhabitants. As to finding a function for you in society, there was nohesitation as to what that would be. Few of us have it in our power toconfer so great a service on the nation as you will be able to when youleave my roof, which, however, you must not think of doing for a goodtime yet. "

"What can I possibly do?" I asked. "Perhaps you imagine I have sometrade, or art, or special skill. I assure you I have none whatever. Inever earned a dollar in my life, or did an hour's work. I am strong, and might be a common laborer, but nothing more. "

"If that were the most efficient service you were able to render thenation, you would find that avocation considered quite as respectableas any other, " replied Dr. Leete; "but you can do something elsebetter. You are easily the master of all our historians on questionsrelating to the social condition of the latter part of the nineteenthcentury, to us one of the most absorbingly interesting periods ofhistory: and whenever in due time you have sufficiently familiarizedyourself with our institutions, and are willing to teach us somethingconcerning those of your day, you will find an historical lectureshipin one of our colleges awaiting you. "

"Very good! very good indeed, " I said, much relieved by so practical asuggestion on a point which had begun to trouble me. "If your peopleare really so much interested in the nineteenth century, there willindeed be an occupation ready-made for me. I don't think there isanything else that I could possibly earn my salt at, but I certainlymay claim without conceit to have some special qualifications for sucha post as you describe. "

Chapter 17

I found the processes at the warehouse quite as interesting as Edithhad described them, and became even enthusiastic over the trulyremarkable illustration which is seen there of the prodigiouslymultiplied efficiency which perfect organization can give to labor. Itis like a gigantic mill, into the hopper of which goods are beingconstantly poured by the train-load and shipload, to issue at the otherend in packages of pounds and ounces, yards and inches, pints andgallons, corresponding to the infinitely complex personal needs of halfa million people. Dr. Leete, with the assistance of data furnished byme as to the way goods were sold in my day, figured out some astoundingresults in the way of the economies effected by the modern system. 

As we set out homeward, I said: "After what I have seen to-day, together with what you have told me, and what I learned under MissLeete's tutelage at the sample store, I have a tolerably clear idea ofyour system of distribution, and how it enables you to dispense with acirculating medium. But I should like very much to know something moreabout your system of production. You have told me in general how yourindustrial army is levied and organized, but who directs its efforts?What supreme authority determines what shall be done in everydepartment, so that enough of everything is produced and yet no laborwasted? It seems to me that this must be a wonderfully complex anddifficult function, requiring very unusual endowments. "

"Does it indeed seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete. "I assure youthat it is nothing of the kind, but on the other hand so simple, anddepending on principles so obvious and easily applied, that thefunctionaries at Washington to whom it is trusted require to be nothingmore than men of fair abilities to discharge it to the entiresatisfaction of the nation. The machine which they direct is indeed avast one, but so logical in its principles and direct and simple in itsworkings, that it all but runs itself; and nobody but a fool couldderange it, as I think you will agree after a few words of explanation. Since you already have a pretty good idea of the working of thedistributive system, let us begin at that end. Even in your daystatisticians were able to tell you the number of yards of cotton, velvet, woolen, the number of barrels of flour, potatoes, butter, number of pairs of shoes, hats, and umbrellas annually consumed by thenation. Owing to the fact that production was in private hands, andthat there was no way of getting statistics of actual distribution, these figures were not exact, but they were nearly so. Now that everypin which is given out from a national warehouse is recorded, of coursethe figures of consumption for any week, month, or year, in thepossession of the department of distribution at the end of that period, are precise. On these figures, allowing for tendencies to increase ordecrease and for any special causes likely to affect demand, theestimates, say for a year ahead, are based. These estimates, with aproper margin for security, having been accepted by the generaladministration, the responsibility of the distributive departmentceases until the goods are delivered to it. I speak of the estimatesbeing furnished for an entire year ahead, but in reality they coverthat much time only in case of the great staples for which the demandcan be calculated on as steady. In the great majority of smallerindustries for the product of which popular taste fluctuates, andnovelty is frequently required, production is kept barely ahead ofconsumption, the distributive department furnishing frequent estimatesbased on the weekly state of demand. 

"Now the entire field of productive and constructive industry isdivided into ten great departments, each representing a group of alliedindustries, each particular industry being in turn represented by asubordinate bureau, which has a complete record of the plant and forceunder its control, of the present product, and means of increasing it. The estimates of the distributive department, after adoption by theadministration, are sent as mandates to the ten great departments, which allot them to the subordinate bureaus representing the particularindustries, and these set the men at work. Each bureau is responsiblefor the task given it, and this responsibility is enforced bydepartmental oversight and that of the administration; nor does thedistributive department accept the product without its own inspection;while even if in the hands of the consumer an article turns out unfit, the system enables the fault to be traced back to the original workman. The production of the commodities for actual public consumption doesnot, of course, require by any means all the national force of workers. After the necessary contingents have been detailed for the variousindustries, the amount of labor left for other employment is expendedin creating fixed capital, such as buildings, machinery, engineeringworks, and so forth. "

"One point occurs to me, " I said, "on which I should think there mightbe dissatisfaction. Where there is no opportunity for privateenterprise, how is there any assurance that the claims of smallminorities of the people to have articles produced, for which there isno wide demand, will be respected? An official decree at any moment maydeprive them of the means of gratifying some special taste, merelybecause the majority does not share it. "

"That would be tyranny indeed, " replied Dr. Leete, "and you may be verysure that it does not happen with us, to whom liberty is as dear asequality or fraternity. As you come to know our system better, you willsee that our officials are in fact, and not merely in name, the agentsand servants of the people. The administration has no power to stop theproduction of any commodity for which there continues to be a demand. Suppose the demand for any article declines to such a point that itsproduction becomes very costly. The price has to be raised inproportion, of course, but as long as the consumer cares to pay it, theproduction goes on. Again, suppose an article not before produced isdemanded. If the administration doubts the reality of the demand, apopular petition guaranteeing a certain basis of consumption compels itto produce the desired article. A government, or a majority, whichshould undertake to tell the people, or a minority, what they were toeat, drink, or wear, as I believe governments in America did in yourday, would be regarded as a curious anachronism indeed. Possibly youhad reasons for tolerating these infringements of personalindependence, but we should not think them endurable. I am glad youraised this point, for it has given me a chance to show you how muchmore direct and efficient is the control over production exercised bythe individual citizen now than it was in your day, when what youcalled private initiative prevailed, though it should have been calledcapitalist initiative, for the average private citizen had littleenough share in it. "

"You speak of raising the price of costly articles, " I said. "How canprices be regulated in a country where there is no competition betweenbuyers or sellers?"

"Just as they were with you, " replied Dr. Leete. "You think that needsexplaining, " he added, as I looked incredulous, "but the explanationneed not be long; the cost of the labor which produced it wasrecognized as the legitimate basis of the price of an article in yourday, and so it is in ours. In your day, it was the difference in wagesthat made the difference in the cost of labor; now it is the relativenumber of hours constituting a day's work in different trades, themaintenance of the worker being equal in all cases. The cost of a man'swork in a trade so difficult that in order to attract volunteers thehours have to be fixed at four a day is twice as great as that in atrade where the men work eight hours. The result as to the cost oflabor, you see, is just the same as if the man working four hours werepaid, under your system, twice the wages the others get. Thiscalculation applied to the labor employed in the various processes of amanufactured article gives its price relatively to other articles. Besides the cost of production and transportation, the factor ofscarcity affects the prices of some commodities. As regards the greatstaples of life, of which an abundance can always be secured, scarcityis eliminated as a factor. There is always a large surplus kept on handfrom which any fluctuations of demand or supply can be corrected, evenin most cases of bad crops. The prices of the staples grow less year byyear, but rarely, if ever, rise. There are, however, certain classes ofarticles permanently, and others temporarily, unequal to the demand, as, for example, fresh fish or dairy products in the latter category, and the products of high skill and rare materials in the other. Allthat can be done here is to equalize the inconvenience of the scarcity. This is done by temporarily raising the price if the scarcity betemporary, or fixing it high if it be permanent. High prices in yourday meant restriction of the articles affected to the rich, butnowadays, when the means of all are the same, the effect is only thatthose to whom the articles seem most desirable are the ones whopurchase them. Of course the nation, as any other caterer for thepublic needs must be, is frequently left with small lots of goods onits hands by changes in taste, unseasonable weather and various othercauses. These it has to dispose of at a sacrifice just as merchantsoften did in your day, charging up the loss to the expenses of thebusiness. Owing, however, to the vast body of consumers to which suchlots can be simultaneously offered, there is rarely any difficulty ingetting rid of them at trifling loss. I have given you now some generalnotion of our system of production; as well as distribution. Do youfind it as complex as you expected?"

I admitted that nothing could be much simpler. 

"I am sure, " said Dr. Leete, "that it is within the truth to say thatthe head of one of the myriad private businesses of your day, who hadto maintain sleepless vigilance against the fluctuations of the market, the machinations of his rivals, and the failure of his debtors, had afar more trying task than the group of men at Washington who nowadaysdirect the industries of the entire nation. All this merely shows, mydear fellow, how much easier it is to do things the right way than thewrong. It is easier for a general up in a balloon, with perfect surveyof the field, to manoeuvre a million men to victory than for a sergeantto manage a platoon in a thicket. "

"The general of this army, including the flower of the manhood of thenation, must be the foremost man in the country, really greater eventhan the President of the United States, " I said. 

"He is the President of the United States, " replied Dr. Leete, "orrather the most important function of the presidency is the headship ofthe industrial army. "

"How is he chosen?" I asked. 

"I explained to you before, " replied Dr. Leete, "when I was describingthe force of the motive of emulation among all grades of the industrialarmy, that the line of promotion for the meritorious lies through threegrades to the officer's grade, and thence up through the lieutenanciesto the captaincy or foremanship, and superintendency or colonel's rank. Next, with an intervening grade in some of the larger trades, comes thegeneral of the guild, under whose immediate control all the operationsof the trade are conducted. This officer is at the head of the nationalbureau representing his trade, and is responsible for its work to theadministration. The general of his guild holds a splendid position, andone which amply satisfies the ambition of most men, but above his rank, which may be compared--to follow the military analogies familiar toyou--to that of a general of division or major-general, is that of thechiefs of the ten great departments, or groups of allied trades. Thechiefs of these ten grand divisions of the industrial army may becompared to your commanders of army corps, or lieutenant-generals, eachhaving from a dozen to a score of generals of separate guilds reportingto him. Above these ten great officers, who form his council, is thegeneral-in-chief, who is the President of the United States. 

"The general-in-chief of the industrial army must have passed throughall the grades below him, from the common laborers up. Let us see howhe rises. As I have told you, it is simply by the excellence of hisrecord as a worker that one rises through the grades of the privatesand becomes a candidate for a lieutenancy. Through the lieutenancies herises to the colonelcy, or superintendent's position, by appointmentfrom above, strictly limited to the candidates of the best records. Thegeneral of the guild appoints to the ranks under him, but he himself isnot appointed, but chosen by suffrage. "

"By suffrage!" I exclaimed. "Is not that ruinous to the discipline ofthe guild, by tempting the candidates to intrigue for the support ofthe workers under them?"

"So it would be, no doubt, " replied Dr. Leete, "if the workers had anysuffrage to exercise, or anything to say about the choice. But theyhave nothing. Just here comes in a peculiarity of our system. Thegeneral of the guild is chosen from among the superintendents by voteof the honorary members of the guild, that is, of those who have servedtheir time in the guild and received their discharge. As you know, atthe age of forty-five we are mustered out of the army of industry, andhave the residue of life for the pursuit of our own improvement orrecreation. Of course, however, the associations of our active lifetimeretain a powerful hold on us. The companionships we formed then remainour companionships till the end of life. We always continue honorarymembers of our former guilds, and retain the keenest and most jealousinterest in their welfare and repute in the hands of the followinggeneration. In the clubs maintained by the honorary members of theseveral guilds, in which we meet socially, there are no topics ofconversation so common as those which relate to these matters, and theyoung aspirants for guild leadership who can pass the criticism of usold fellows are likely to be pretty well equipped. Recognizing thisfact, the nation entrusts to the honorary members of each guild theelection of its general, and I venture to claim that no previous formof society could have developed a body of electors so ideally adaptedto their office, as regards absolute impartiality, knowledge of thespecial qualifications and record of candidates, solicitude for thebest result, and complete absence of self-interest. 

"Each of the ten lieutenant-generals or heads of departments is himselfelected from among the generals of the guilds grouped as a department, by vote of the honorary members of the guilds thus grouped. Of coursethere is a tendency on the part of each guild to vote for its owngeneral, but no guild of any group has nearly enough votes to elect aman not supported by most of the others. I assure you that theseelections are exceedingly lively. "

"The President, I suppose, is selected from among the ten heads of thegreat departments, " I suggested. 

"Precisely, but the heads of departments are not eligible to thepresidency till they have been a certain number of years out of office. It is rarely that a man passes through all the grades to the headshipof a department much before he is forty, and at the end of a fiveyears' term he is usually forty-five. If more, he still serves throughhis term, and if less, he is nevertheless discharged from theindustrial army at its termination. It would not do for him to returnto the ranks. The interval before he is a candidate for the presidencyis intended to give time for him to recognize fully that he hasreturned into the general mass of the nation, and is identified with itrather than with the industrial army. Moreover, it is expected that hewill employ this period in studying the general condition of the army, instead of that of the special group of guilds of which he was thehead. From among the former heads of departments who may be eligible atthe time, the President is elected by vote of all the men of the nationwho are not connected with the industrial army. "

"The army is not allowed to vote for President?"

"Certainly not. That would be perilous to its discipline, which it isthe business of the President to maintain as the representative of thenation at large. His right hand for this purpose is the inspectorate, ahighly important department of our system; to the inspectorate come allcomplaints or information as to defects in goods, insolence orinefficiency of officials, or dereliction of any sort in the publicservice. The inspectorate, however, does not wait for complaints. Notonly is it on the alert to catch and sift every rumor of a fault in theservice, but it is its business, by systematic and constant oversightand inspection of every branch of the army, to find out what is goingwrong before anybody else does. The President is usually not far fromfifty when elected, and serves five years, forming an honorableexception to the rule of retirement at forty-five. At the end of histerm of office, a national Congress is called to receive his report andapprove or condemn it. If it is approved, Congress usually elects himto represent the nation for five years more in the internationalcouncil. Congress, I should also say, passes on the reports of theoutgoing heads of departments, and a disapproval renders any one ofthem ineligible for President. But it is rare, indeed, that the nationhas occasion for other sentiments than those of gratitude toward itshigh officers. As to their ability, to have risen from the ranks, bytests so various and severe, to their positions, is proof in itself ofextraordinary qualities, while as to faithfulness, our social systemleaves them absolutely without any other motive than that of winningthe esteem of their fellow citizens. Corruption is impossible in asociety where there is neither poverty to be bribed nor wealth tobribe, while as to demagoguery or intrigue for office, the conditionsof promotion render them out of the question. "

"One point I do not quite understand, " I said. "Are the members of theliberal professions eligible to the presidency? and if so, how are theyranked with those who pursue the industries proper?"

"They have no ranking with them, " replied Dr. Leete. "The members ofthe technical professions, such as engineers and architects, have aranking with the constructive guilds; but the members of the liberalprofessions, the doctors and teachers, as well as the artists and menof letters who obtain remissions of industrial service, do not belongto the industrial army. On this ground they vote for the President, butare not eligible to his office. One of its main duties being thecontrol and discipline of the industrial army, it is essential that thePresident should have passed through all its grades to understand hisbusiness. "

"That is reasonable, " I said; "but if the doctors and teachers do notknow enough of industry to be President, neither, I should think, canthe President know enough of medicine and education to control thosedepartments. "

"No more does he, " was the reply. "Except in the general way that he isresponsible for the enforcement of the laws as to all classes, thePresident has nothing to do with the faculties of medicine andeducation, which are controlled by boards of regents of their own, inwhich the President is ex-officio chairman, and has the casting vote. These regents, who, of course, are responsible to Congress, are chosenby the honorary members of the guilds of education and medicine, theretired teachers and doctors of the country. "

"Do you know, " I said, "the method of electing officials by votes ofthe retired members of the guilds is nothing more than the applicationon a national scale of the plan of government by alumni, which we usedto a slight extent occasionally in the management of our highereducational institutions. "

"Did you, indeed?" exclaimed Dr. Leete, with animation. "That is quitenew to me, and I fancy will be to most of us, and of much interest aswell. There has been great discussion as to the germ of the idea, andwe fancied that there was for once something new under the sun. Well!well! In your higher educational institutions! that is interestingindeed. You must tell me more of that. "

"Truly, there is very little more to tell than I have told already, " Ireplied. "If we had the germ of your idea, it was but as a germ. "

Chapter 18

That evening I sat up for some time after the ladies had retired, talking with Dr. Leete about the effect of the plan of exempting menfrom further service to the nation after the age of forty-five, a pointbrought up by his account of the part taken by the retired citizens inthe government. 

"At forty-five, " said I, "a man still has ten years of good manuallabor in him, and twice ten years of good intellectual service. To besuperannuated at that age and laid on the shelf must be regarded ratheras a hardship than a favor by men of energetic dispositions. "

"My dear Mr. West, " exclaimed Dr. Leete, beaming upon me, "you cannothave any idea of the piquancy your nineteenth century ideas have for usof this day, the rare quaintness of their effect. Know, O child ofanother race and yet the same, that the labor we have to render as ourpart in securing for the nation the means of a comfortable physicalexistence is by no means regarded as the most important, the mostinteresting, or the most dignified employment of our powers. We lookupon it as a necessary duty to be discharged before we can fully devoteourselves to the higher exercise of our faculties, the intellectual andspiritual enjoyments and pursuits which alone mean life. Everythingpossible is indeed done by the just distribution of burdens, and by allmanner of special attractions and incentives to relieve our labor ofirksomeness, and, except in a comparative sense, it is not usuallyirksome, and is often inspiring. But it is not our labor, but thehigher and larger activities which the performance of our task willleave us free to enter upon, that are considered the main business ofexistence. 

"Of course not all, nor the majority, have those scientific, artistic, literary, or scholarly interests which make leisure the one thingvaluable to their possessors. Many look upon the last half of lifechiefly as a period for enjoyment of other sorts; for travel, forsocial relaxation in the company of their life-time friends; a time forthe cultivation of all manner of personal idiosyncrasies and specialtastes, and the pursuit of every imaginable form of recreation; in aword, a time for the leisurely and unperturbed appreciation of the goodthings of the world which they have helped to create. But, whatever thedifferences between our individual tastes as to the use we shall putour leisure to, we all agree in looking forward to the date of ourdischarge as the time when we shall first enter upon the full enjoymentof our birthright, the period when we shall first really attain ourmajority and become enfranchised from discipline and control, with thefee of our lives vested in ourselves. As eager boys in your dayanticipated twenty-one, so men nowadays look forward to forty-five. Attwenty-one we become men, but at forty-five we renew youth. Middle ageand what you would have called old age are considered, rather thanyouth, the enviable time of life. Thanks to the better conditions ofexistence nowadays, and above all the freedom of every one from care, old age approaches many years later and has an aspect far more benignthan in past times. Persons of average constitution usually live toeighty-five or ninety, and at forty-five we are physically and mentallyyounger, I fancy, than you were at thirty-five. It is a strangereflection that at forty-five, when we are just entering upon the mostenjoyable period of life, you already began to think of growing old andto look backward. With you it was the forenoon, with us it is theafternoon, which is the brighter half of life. "

After this I remember that our talk branched into the subject ofpopular sports and recreations at the present time as compared withthose of the nineteenth century. 

"In one respect, " said Dr. Leete, "there is a marked difference. Theprofessional sportsmen, which were such a curious feature of your day, we have nothing answering to, nor are the prizes for which our athletescontend money prizes, as with you. Our contests are always for gloryonly. The generous rivalry existing between the various guilds, and theloyalty of each worker to his own, afford a constant stimulation to allsorts of games and matches by sea and land, in which the young men takescarcely more interest than the honorary guildsmen who have servedtheir time. The guild yacht races off Marblehead take place next week, and you will be able to judge for yourself of the popular enthusiasmwhich such events nowadays call out as compared with your day. Thedemand for 'panem ef circenses' preferred by the Roman populace isrecognized nowadays as a wholly reasonable one. If bread is the firstnecessity of life, recreation is a close second, and the nation catersfor both. Americans of the nineteenth century were as unfortunate inlacking an adequate provision for the one sort of need as for theother. Even if the people of that period had enjoyed larger leisure, they would, I fancy, have often been at a loss how to pass itagreeably. We are never in that predicament. "

Chapter 19

In the course of an early morning constitutional I visited Charlestown. Among the changes, too numerous to attempt to indicate, which mark thelapse of a century in that quarter, I particularly noted the totaldisappearance of the old state prison. 

"That went before my day, but I remember hearing about it, " said Dr. Leete, when I alluded to the fact at the breakfast table. "We have nojails nowadays. All cases of atavism are treated in the hospitals. "

"Of atavism!" I exclaimed, staring. 

"Why, yes, " replied Dr. Leete. "The idea of dealing punitively withthose unfortunates was given up at least fifty years ago, and I thinkmore. "

"I don't quite understand you, " I said. "Atavism in my day was a wordapplied to the cases of persons in whom some trait of a remote ancestorrecurred in a noticeable manner. Am I to understand that crime isnowadays looked upon as the recurrence of an ancestral trait?"

"I beg your pardon, " said Dr. Leete with a smile half humorous, halfdeprecating, "but since you have so explicitly asked the question, I amforced to say that the fact is precisely that. "

After what I had already learned of the moral contrasts between thenineteenth and the twentieth centuries, it was doubtless absurd in meto begin to develop sensitiveness on the subject, and probably if Dr. Leete had not spoken with that apologetic air and Mrs. Leete and Edithshown a corresponding embarrassment, I should not have flushed, as Iwas conscious I did. 

"I was not in much danger of being vain of my generation before, " Isaid; "but, really--"

"This is your generation, Mr. West, " interposed Edith. "It is the onein which you are living, you know, and it is only because we are alivenow that we call it ours. "

"Thank you. I will try to think of it so, " I said, and as my eyes methers their expression quite cured my senseless sensitiveness. "Afterall, " I said, with a laugh, "I was brought up a Calvinist, and oughtnot to be startled to hear crime spoken of as an ancestral trait. "

"In point of fact, " said Dr. Leete, "our use of the word is noreflection at all on your generation, if, begging Edith's pardon, wemay call it yours, so far as seeming to imply that we think ourselves, apart from our circumstances, better than you were. In your day fullynineteen twentieths of the crime, using the word broadly to include allsorts of misdemeanors, resulted from the inequality in the possessionsof individuals; want tempted the poor, lust of greater gains, or thedesire to preserve former gains, tempted the well-to-do. Directly orindirectly, the desire for money, which then meant every good thing, was the motive of all this crime, the taproot of a vast poison growth, which the machinery of law, courts, and police could barely preventfrom choking your civilization outright. When we made the nation thesole trustee of the wealth of the people, and guaranteed to allabundant maintenance, on the one hand abolishing want, and on the otherchecking the accumulation of riches, we cut this root, and the poisontree that overshadowed your society withered, like Jonah's gourd, in aday. As for the comparatively small class of violent crimes againstpersons, unconnected with any idea of gain, they were almost whollyconfined, even in your day, to the ignorant and bestial; and in thesedays, when education and good manners are not the monopoly of a few, but universal, such atrocities are scarcely ever heard of. You now seewhy the word 'atavism' is used for crime. It is because nearly allforms of crime known to you are motiveless now, and when they appearcan only be explained as the outcropping of ancestral traits. You usedto call persons who stole, evidently without any rational motive, kleptomaniacs, and when the case was clear deemed it absurd to punishthem as thieves. Your attitude toward the genuine kleptomaniac isprecisely ours toward the victim of atavism, an attitude of compassionand firm but gentle restraint. "

"Your courts must have an easy time of it, " I observed. "With noprivate property to speak of, no disputes between citizens overbusiness relations, no real estate to divide or debts to collect, theremust be absolutely no civil business at all for them; and with nooffenses against property, and mighty few of any sort to providecriminal cases, I should think you might almost do without judges andlawyers altogether. "

"We do without the lawyers, certainly, " was Dr. Leete's reply. "Itwould not seem reasonable to us, in a case where the only interest ofthe nation is to find out the truth, that persons should take part inthe proceedings who had an acknowledged motive to color it. "

"But who defends the accused?"

"If he is a criminal he needs no defense, for he pleads guilty in mostinstances, " replied Dr. Leete. "The plea of the accused is not a mereformality with us, as with you. It is usually the end of the case. "

"You don't mean that the man who pleads not guilty is thereupondischarged?"

"No, I do not mean that. He is not accused on light grounds, and if hedenies his guilt, must still be tried. But trials are few, for in mostcases the guilty man pleads guilty. When he makes a false plea and isclearly proved guilty, his penalty is doubled. Falsehood is, however, so despised among us that few offenders would lie to save themselves. "

"That is the most astounding thing you have yet told me, " I exclaimed. "If lying has gone out of fashion, this is indeed the 'new heavens andthe new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, ' which the prophetforetold. "

"Such is, in fact, the belief of some persons nowadays, " was thedoctor's answer. "They hold that we have entered upon the millennium, and the theory from their point of view does not lack plausibility. Butas to your astonishment at finding that the world has outgrown lying, there is really no ground for it. Falsehood, even in your day, was notcommon between gentlemen and ladies, social equals. The lie of fear wasthe refuge of cowardice, and the lie of fraud the device of the cheat. The inequalities of men and the lust of acquisition offered a constantpremium on lying at that time. Yet even then, the man who neitherfeared another nor desired to defraud him scorned falsehood. Because weare now all social equals, and no man either has anything to fear fromanother or can gain anything by deceiving him, the contempt offalsehood is so universal that it is rarely, as I told you, that even acriminal in other respects will be found willing to lie. When, however, a plea of not guilty is returned, the judge appoints two colleagues tostate the opposite sides of the case. How far these men are from beinglike your hired advocates and prosecutors, determined to acquit orconvict, may appear from the fact that unless both agree that theverdict found is just, the case is tried over, while anything like biasin the tone of either of the judges stating the case would be ashocking scandal. "

"Do I understand, " I said, "that it is a judge who states each side ofthe case as well as a judge who hears it?"

"Certainly. The judges take turns in serving on the bench and at thebar, and are expected to maintain the judicial temper equally whetherin stating or deciding a case. The system is indeed in effect that oftrial by three judges occupying different points of view as to thecase. When they agree upon a verdict, we believe it to be as near toabsolute truth as men well can come. "

"You have given up the jury system, then?"

"It was well enough as a corrective in the days of hired advocates, anda bench sometimes venal, and often with a tenure that made itdependent, but is needless now. No conceivable motive but justice couldactuate our judges. "

"How are these magistrates selected?"

"They are an honorable exception to the rule which discharges all menfrom service at the age of forty-five. The President of the nationappoints the necessary judges year by year from the class reaching thatage. The number appointed is, of course, exceedingly few, and the honorso high that it is held an offset to the additional term of servicewhich follows, and though a judge's appointment may be declined, itrarely is. The term is five years, without eligibility toreappointment. The members of the Supreme Court, which is the guardianof the constitution, are selected from among the lower judges. When avacancy in that court occurs, those of the lower judges, whose termsexpire that year, select, as their last official act, the one of theircolleagues left on the bench whom they deem fittest to fill it. "

"There being no legal profession to serve as a school for judges, " Isaid, "they must, of course, come directly from the law school to thebench. "

"We have no such things as law schools, " replied the doctor smiling. "The law as a special science is obsolete. It was a system of casuistrywhich the elaborate artificiality of the old order of societyabsolutely required to interpret it, but only a few of the plainest andsimplest legal maxims have any application to the existing state of theworld. Everything touching the relations of men to one another is nowsimpler, beyond any comparison, than in your day. We should have nosort of use for the hair-splitting experts who presided and argued inyour courts. You must not imagine, however, that we have any disrespectfor those ancient worthies because we have no use for them. On thecontrary, we entertain an unfeigned respect, amounting almost to awe, for the men who alone understood and were able to expound theinterminable complexity of the rights of property, and the relations ofcommercial and personal dependence involved in your system. What, indeed, could possibly give a more powerful impression of the intricacyand artificiality of that system than the fact that it was necessary toset apart from other pursuits the cream of the intellect of everygeneration, in order to provide a body of pundits able to make it evenvaguely intelligible to those whose fates it determined. The treatisesof your great lawyers, the works of Blackstone and Chitty, of Story andParsons, stand in our museums, side by side with the tomes of DunsScotus and his fellow scholastics, as curious monuments of intellectualsubtlety devoted to subjects equally remote from the interests ofmodern men. Our judges are simply widely informed, judicious, anddiscreet men of ripe years. 

"I should not fail to speak of one important function of the minorjudges, " added Dr. Leete. "This is to adjudicate all cases where aprivate of the industrial army makes a complaint of unfairness againstan officer. All such questions are heard and settled without appeal bya single judge, three judges being required only in graver cases. Theefficiency of industry requires the strictest discipline in the army oflabor, but the claim of the workman to just and considerate treatmentis backed by the whole power of the nation. The officer commands andthe private obeys, but no officer is so high that he would dare displayan overbearing manner toward a workman of the lowest class. As forchurlishness or rudeness by an official of any sort, in his relationsto the public, not one among minor offenses is more sure of a promptpenalty than this. Not only justice but civility is enforced by ourjudges in all sorts of intercourse. No value of service is accepted asa set-off to boorish or offensive manners. "

It occurred to me, as Dr. Leete was speaking, that in all his talk Ihad heard much of the nation and nothing of the state governments. Hadthe organization of the nation as an industrial unit done away with thestates? I asked. 

"Necessarily, " he replied. "The state governments would have interferedwith the control and discipline of the industrial army, which, ofcourse, required to be central and uniform. Even if the stategovernments had not become inconvenient for other reasons, they wererendered superfluous by the prodigious simplification in the task ofgovernment since your day. Almost the sole function of theadministration now is that of directing the industries of the country. Most of the purposes for which governments formerly existed no longerremain to be subserved. We have no army or navy, and no militaryorganization. We have no departments of state or treasury, no excise orrevenue services, no taxes or tax collectors. The only function properof government, as known to you, which still remains, is the judiciaryand police system. I have already explained to you how simple is ourjudicial system as compared with your huge and complex machine. Ofcourse the same absence of crime and temptation to it, which make theduties of judges so light, reduces the number and duties of the policeto a minimum. "

"But with no state legislatures, and Congress meeting only once in fiveyears, how do you get your legislation done?"

"We have no legislation, " replied Dr. Leete, "that is, next to none. Itis rarely that Congress, even when it meets, considers any new laws ofconsequence, and then it only has power to commend them to thefollowing Congress, lest anything be done hastily. If you will considera moment, Mr. West, you will see that we have nothing to make lawsabout. The fundamental principles on which our society is foundedsettle for all time the strifes and misunderstandings which in your daycalled for legislation. 

"Fully ninety-nine hundredths of the laws of that time concerned thedefinition and protection of private property and the relations ofbuyers and sellers. There is neither private property, beyond personalbelongings, now, nor buying and selling, and therefore the occasion ofnearly all the legislation formerly necessary has passed away. Formerly, society was a pyramid poised on its apex. All thegravitations of human nature were constantly tending to topple it over, and it could be maintained upright, or rather upwrong (if you willpardon the feeble witticism), by an elaborate system of constantlyrenewed props and buttresses and guy-ropes in the form of laws. Acentral Congress and forty state legislatures, turning out some twentythousand laws a year, could not make new props fast enough to take theplace of those which were constantly breaking down or becomingineffectual through some shifting of the strain. Now society rests onits base, and is in as little need of artificial supports as theeverlasting hills. "

"But you have at least municipal governments besides the one centralauthority?"

"Certainly, and they have important and extensive functions in lookingout for the public comfort and recreation, and the improvement andembellishment of the villages and cities. "

"But having no control over the labor of their people, or means ofhiring it, how can they do anything?"

"Every town or city is conceded the right to retain, for its own publicworks, a certain proportion of the quota of labor its citizenscontribute to the nation. This proportion, being assigned it as so muchcredit, can be applied in any way desired. "

Chapter 20

That afternoon Edith casually inquired if I had yet revisited theunderground chamber in the garden in which I had been found. 

"Not yet, " I replied. "To be frank, I have shrunk thus far from doingso, lest the visit might revive old associations rather too stronglyfor my mental equilibrium. "

"Ah, yes!" she said, "I can imagine that you have done well to stayaway. I ought to have thought of that. "

"No, " I said, "I am glad you spoke of it. The danger, if there was any, existed only during the first day or two. Thanks to you, chiefly andalways, I feel my footing now so firm in this new world, that if youwill go with me to keep the ghosts off, I should really like to visitthe place this afternoon. "

Edith demurred at first, but, finding that I was in earnest, consentedto accompany me. The rampart of earth thrown up from the excavation wasvisible among the trees from the house, and a few steps brought us tothe spot. All remained as it was at the point when work was interruptedby the discovery of the tenant of the chamber, save that the door hadbeen opened and the slab from the roof replaced. Descending the slopingsides of the excavation, we went in at the door and stood within thedimly lighted room. 

Everything was just as I had beheld it last on that evening one hundredand thirteen years previous, just before closing my eyes for that longsleep. I stood for some time silently looking about me. I saw that mycompanion was furtively regarding me with an expression of awed andsympathetic curiosity. I put out my hand to her and she placed hers init, the soft fingers responding with a reassuring pressure to my clasp. Finally she whispered, "Had we not better go out now? You must not tryyourself too far. Oh, how strange it must be to you!"

"On the contrary, " I replied, "it does not seem strange; that is thestrangest part of it. "

"Not strange?" she echoed. 

"Even so, " I replied. "The emotions with which you evidently credit me, and which I anticipated would attend this visit, I simply do not feel. I realize all that these surroundings suggest, but without theagitation I expected. You can't be nearly as much surprised at this asI am myself. Ever since that terrible morning when you came to my help, I have tried to avoid thinking of my former life, just as I haveavoided coming here, for fear of the agitating effects. I am for allthe world like a man who has permitted an injured limb to liemotionless under the impression that it is exquisitely sensitive, andon trying to move it finds that it is paralyzed. "

"Do you mean your memory is gone?"

"Not at all. I remember everything connected with my former life, butwith a total lack of keen sensation. I remember it for clearness as ifit had been but a day since then, but my feelings about what I rememberare as faint as if to my consciousness, as well as in fact, a hundredyears had intervened. Perhaps it is possible to explain this, too. Theeffect of change in surroundings is like that of lapse of time inmaking the past seem remote. When I first woke from that trance, myformer life appeared as yesterday, but now, since I have learned toknow my new surroundings, and to realize the prodigious changes thathave transformed the world, I no longer find it hard, but very easy, torealize that I have slept a century. Can you conceive of such a thingas living a hundred years in four days? It really seems to me that Ihave done just that, and that it is this experience which has given soremote and unreal an appearance to my former life. Can you see how sucha thing might be?"

"I can conceive it, " replied Edith, meditatively, "and I think we oughtall to be thankful that it is so, for it will save you much suffering, I am sure. "

"Imagine, " I said, in an effort to explain, as much to myself as toher, the strangeness of my mental condition, "that a man first heard ofa bereavement many, many years, half a lifetime perhaps, after theevent occurred. I fancy his feeling would be perhaps something as mineis. When I think of my friends in the world of that former day, and thesorrow they must have felt for me, it is with a pensive pity, ratherthan keen anguish, as of a sorrow long, long ago ended. "

"You have told us nothing yet of your friends, " said Edith. "Had youmany to mourn you?"

"Thank God, I had very few relatives, none nearer than cousins, " Ireplied. "But there was one, not a relative, but dearer to me than anykin of blood. She had your name. She was to have been my wife soon. Ahme!"

"Ah me!" sighed the Edith by my side. "Think of the heartache she musthave had. "

Something in the deep feeling of this gentle girl touched a chord in mybenumbed heart. My eyes, before so dry, were flooded with the tearsthat had till now refused to come. When I had regained my composure, Isaw that she too had been weeping freely. 

"God bless your tender heart, " I said. "Would you like to see herpicture?"

A small locket with Edith Bartlett's picture, secured about my neckwith a gold chain, had lain upon my breast all through that long sleep, and removing this I opened and gave it to my companion. She took itwith eagerness, and after poring long over the sweet face, touched thepicture with her lips. 

"I know that she was good and lovely enough to well deserve yourtears, " she said; "but remember her heartache was over long ago, andshe has been in heaven for nearly a century. "

It was indeed so. Whatever her sorrow had once been, for nearly acentury she had ceased to weep, and, my sudden passion spent, my owntears dried away. I had loved her very dearly in my other life, but itwas a hundred years ago! I do not know but some may find in thisconfession evidence of lack of feeling, but I think, perhaps, that nonecan have had an experience sufficiently like mine to enable them tojudge me. As we were about to leave the chamber, my eye rested upon thegreat iron safe which stood in one corner. Calling my companion'sattention to it, I said:

"This was my strong room as well as my sleeping room. In the safeyonder are several thousand dollars in gold, and any amount ofsecurities. If I had known when I went to sleep that night just howlong my nap would be, I should still have thought that the gold was asafe provision for my needs in any country or any century, howeverdistant. That a time would ever come when it would lose its purchasingpower, I should have considered the wildest of fancies. Nevertheless, here I wake up to find myself among a people of whom a cartload of goldwill not procure a loaf of bread. "

As might be expected, I did not succeed in impressing Edith that therewas anything remarkable in this fact. "Why in the world should it?" shemerely asked. 

Chapter 21

It had been suggested by Dr. Leete that we should devote the nextmorning to an inspection of the schools and colleges of the city, withsome attempt on his own part at an explanation of the educationalsystem of the twentieth century. 

"You will see, " said he, as we set out after breakfast, "many veryimportant differences between our methods of education and yours, butthe main difference is that nowadays all persons equally have thoseopportunities of higher education which in your day only aninfinitesimal portion of the population enjoyed. We should think we hadgained nothing worth speaking of, in equalizing the physical comfort ofmen, without this educational equality. "

"The cost must be very great, " I said. 

"If it took half the revenue of the nation, nobody would grudge it, "replied Dr. Leete, "nor even if it took it all save a bare pittance. But in truth the expense of educating ten thousand youth is not ten norfive times that of educating one thousand. The principle which makesall operations on a large scale proportionally cheaper than on a smallscale holds as to education also. "

"College education was terribly expensive in my day, " said I. 

"If I have not been misinformed by our historians, " Dr. Leete answered, "it was not college education but college dissipation and extravagancewhich cost so highly. The actual expense of your colleges appears tohave been very low, and would have been far lower if their patronagehad been greater. The higher education nowadays is as cheap as thelower, as all grades of teachers, like all other workers, receive thesame support. We have simply added to the common school system ofcompulsory education, in vogue in Massachusetts a hundred years ago, ahalf dozen higher grades, carrying the youth to the age of twenty-oneand giving him what you used to call the education of a gentleman, instead of turning him loose at fourteen or fifteen with no mentalequipment beyond reading, writing, and the multiplication table. "

"Setting aside the actual cost of these additional years of education, "I replied, "we should not have thought we could afford the loss of timefrom industrial pursuits. Boys of the poorer classes usually went towork at sixteen or younger, and knew their trade at twenty. "

"We should not concede you any gain even in material product by thatplan, " Dr. Leete replied. "The greater efficiency which education givesto all sorts of labor, except the rudest, makes up in a short periodfor the time lost in acquiring it. "

"We should also have been afraid, " said I, "that a high education, while it adapted men to the professions, would set them against manuallabor of all sorts. "

"That was the effect of high education in your day, I have read, "replied the doctor; "and it was no wonder, for manual labor meantassociation with a rude, coarse, and ignorant class of people. There isno such class now. It was inevitable that such a feeling should existthen, for the further reason that all men receiving a high educationwere understood to be destined for the professions or for wealthyleisure, and such an education in one neither rich nor professional wasa proof of disappointed aspirations, an evidence of failure, a badge ofinferiority rather than superiority. Nowadays, of course, when thehighest education is deemed necessary to fit a man merely to live, without any reference to the sort of work he may do, its possessionconveys no such implication. "

"After all, " I remarked, "no amount of education can cure naturaldullness or make up for original mental deficiencies. Unless theaverage natural mental capacity of men is much above its level in myday, a high education must be pretty nearly thrown away on a largeelement of the population. We used to hold that a certain amount ofsusceptibility to educational influences is required to make a mindworth cultivating, just as a certain natural fertility in soil isrequired if it is to repay tilling. "

"Ah, " said Dr. Leete, "I am glad you used that illustration, for it isjust the one I would have chosen to set forth the modern view ofeducation. You say that land so poor that the product will not repaythe labor of tilling is not cultivated. Nevertheless, much land thatdoes not begin to repay tilling by its product was cultivated in yourday and is in ours. I refer to gardens, parks, lawns, and, in general, to pieces of land so situated that, were they left to grow up to weedsand briers, they would be eyesores and inconveniencies to all about. They are therefore tilled, and though their product is little, there isyet no land that, in a wider sense, better repays cultivation. So it iswith the men and women with whom we mingle in the relations of society, whose voices are always in our ears, whose behavior in innumerable waysaffects our enjoyment--who are, in fact, as much conditions of ourlives as the air we breathe, or any of the physical elements on whichwe depend. If, indeed, we could not afford to educate everybody, weshould choose the coarsest and dullest by nature, rather than thebrightest, to receive what education we could give. The naturallyrefined and intellectual can better dispense with aids to culture thanthose less fortunate in natural endowments. 

"To borrow a phrase which was often used in your day, we should notconsider life worth living if we had to be surrounded by a populationof ignorant, boorish, coarse, wholly uncultivated men and women, as wasthe plight of the few educated in your day. Is a man satisfied, merelybecause he is perfumed himself, to mingle with a malodorous crowd?Could he take more than a very limited satisfaction, even in a palatialapartment, if the windows on all four sides opened into stable yards?And yet just that was the situation of those considered most fortunateas to culture and refinement in your day. I know that the poor andignorant envied the rich and cultured then; but to us the latter, living as they did, surrounded by squalor and brutishness, seem littlebetter off than the former. The cultured man in your age was like oneup to the neck in a nauseous bog solacing himself with a smellingbottle. You see, perhaps, now, how we look at this question ofuniversal high education. No single thing is so important to every manas to have for neighbors intelligent, companionable persons. There isnothing, therefore, which the nation can do for him that will enhanceso much his own happiness as to educate his neighbors. When it fails todo so, the value of his own education to him is reduced by half, andmany of the tastes he has cultivated are made positive sources of pain. 

"To educate some to the highest degree, and leave the mass whollyuncultivated, as you did, made the gap between them almost like thatbetween different natural species, which have no means ofcommunication. What could be more inhuman than this consequence of apartial enjoyment of education! Its universal and equal enjoymentleaves, indeed, the differences between men as to natural endowments asmarked as in a state of nature, but the level of the lowest is vastlyraised. Brutishness is eliminated. All have some inkling of thehumanities, some appreciation of the things of the mind, and anadmiration for the still higher culture they have fallen short of. Theyhave become capable of receiving and imparting, in various degrees, butall in some measure, the pleasures and inspirations of a refined sociallife. The cultured society of the nineteenth century--what did itconsist of but here and there a few microscopic oases in a vast, unbroken wilderness? The proportion of individuals capable ofintellectual sympathies or refined intercourse, to the mass of theircontemporaries, used to be so infinitesimal as to be in any broad viewof humanity scarcely worth mentioning. One generation of the worldto-day represents a greater volume of intellectual life than any fivecenturies ever did before. 

"There is still another point I should mention in stating the groundson which nothing less than the universality of the best education couldnow be tolerated, " continued Dr. Leete, "and that is, the interest ofthe coming generation in having educated parents. To put the matter ina nutshell, there are three main grounds on which our educationalsystem rests: first, the right of every man to the completest educationthe nation can give him on his own account, as necessary to hisenjoyment of himself; second, the right of his fellow-citizens to havehim educated, as necessary to their enjoyment of his society; third, the right of the unborn to be guaranteed an intelligent and refinedparentage. "

I shall not describe in detail what I saw in the schools that day. Having taken but slight interest in educational matters in my formerlife, I could offer few comparisons of interest. Next to the fact ofthe universality of the higher as well as the lower education, I wasmost struck with the prominence given to physical culture, and the factthat proficiency in athletic feats and games as well as in scholarshiphad a place in the rating of the youth. 

"The faculty of education, " Dr. Leete explained, "is held to the sameresponsibility for the bodies as for the minds of its charges. Thehighest possible physical, as well as mental, development of every oneis the double object of a curriculum which lasts from the age of six tothat of twenty-one. "

The magnificent health of the young people in the schools impressed mestrongly. My previous observations, not only of the notable personalendowments of the family of my host, but of the people I had seen in mywalks abroad, had already suggested the idea that there must have beensomething like a general improvement in the physical standard of therace since my day, and now, as I compared these stalwart young men andfresh, vigorous maidens with the young people I had seen in the schoolsof the nineteenth century, I was moved to impart my thought to Dr. Leete. He listened with great interest to what I said. 

"Your testimony on this point, " he declared, "is invaluable. We believethat there has been such an improvement as you speak of, but of courseit could only be a matter of theory with us. It is an incident of yourunique position that you alone in the world of to-day can speak withauthority on this point. Your opinion, when you state it publicly, will, I assure you, make a profound sensation. For the rest it would bestrange, certainly, if the race did not show an improvement. In yourday, riches debauched one class with idleness of mind and body, whilepoverty sapped the vitality of the masses by overwork, bad food, andpestilent homes. The labor required of children, and the burdens laidon women, enfeebled the very springs of life. Instead of thesemaleficent circumstances, all now enjoy the most favorable conditionsof physical life; the young are carefully nurtured and studiously caredfor; the labor which is required of all is limited to the period ofgreatest bodily vigor, and is never excessive; care for one's self andone's family, anxiety as to livelihood, the strain of a ceaselessbattle for life--all these influences, which once did so much to wreckthe minds and bodies of men and women, are known no more. Certainly, animprovement of the species ought to follow such a change. In certainspecific respects we know, indeed, that the improvement has takenplace. Insanity, for instance, which in the nineteenth century was soterribly common a product of your insane mode of life, has almostdisappeared, with its alternative, suicide. "

Chapter 22

We had made an appointment to meet the ladies at the dining-hall fordinner, after which, having some engagement, they left us sitting attable there, discussing our wine and cigars with a multitude of othermatters. 

"Doctor, " said I, in the course of our talk, "morally speaking, yoursocial system is one which I should be insensate not to admire incomparison with any previously in vogue in the world, and especiallywith that of my own most unhappy century. If I were to fall into amesmeric sleep tonight as lasting as that other and meanwhile thecourse of time were to take a turn backward instead of forward, and Iwere to wake up again in the nineteenth century, when I had told myfriends what I had seen, they would every one admit that your world wasa paradise of order, equity, and felicity. But they were a verypractical people, my contemporaries, and after expressing theiradmiration for the moral beauty and material splendor of the system, they would presently begin to cipher and ask how you got the money tomake everybody so happy; for certainly, to support the whole nation ata rate of comfort, and even luxury, such as I see around me, mustinvolve vastly greater wealth than the nation produced in my day. Now, while I could explain to them pretty nearly everything else of the mainfeatures of your system, I should quite fail to answer this question, and failing there, they would tell me, for they were very closecipherers, that I had been dreaming; nor would they ever believeanything else. In my day, I know that the total annual product of thenation, although it might have been divided with absolute equality, would not have come to more than three or four hundred dollars perhead, not very much more than enough to supply the necessities of lifewith few or any of its comforts. How is it that you have so much more?"

"That is a very pertinent question, Mr. West, " replied Dr. Leete, "andI should not blame your friends, in the case you supposed, if theydeclared your story all moonshine, failing a satisfactory reply to it. It is a question which I cannot answer exhaustively at any one sitting, and as for the exact statistics to bear out my general statements, Ishall have to refer you for them to books in my library, but it wouldcertainly be a pity to leave you to be put to confusion by your oldacquaintances, in case of the contingency you speak of, for lack of afew suggestions. 

"Let us begin with a number of small items wherein we economize wealthas compared with you. We have no national, state, county, or municipaldebts, or payments on their account. We have no sort of military ornaval expenditures for men or materials, no army, navy, or militia. Wehave no revenue service, no swarm of tax assessors and collectors. Asregards our judiciary, police, sheriffs, and jailers, the force whichMassachusetts alone kept on foot in your day far more than suffices forthe nation now. We have no criminal class preying upon the wealth ofsociety as you had. The number of persons, more or less absolutely lostto the working force through physical disability, of the lame, sick, and debilitated, which constituted such a burden on the able-bodied inyour day, now that all live under conditions of health and comfort, hasshrunk to scarcely perceptible proportions, and with every generationis becoming more completely eliminated. 

"Another item wherein we save is the disuse of money and the thousandoccupations connected with financial operations of all sorts, wherebyan army of men was formerly taken away from useful employments. Alsoconsider that the waste of the very rich in your day on inordinatepersonal luxury has ceased, though, indeed, this item might easily beover-estimated. Again, consider that there are no idlers now, rich orpoor--no drones. 

"A very important cause of former poverty was the vast waste of laborand materials which resulted from domestic washing and cooking, and theperforming separately of innumerable other tasks to which we apply thecooperative plan. 

"A larger economy than any of these--yes, of all together--is effectedby the organization of our distributing system, by which the work doneonce by the merchants, traders, storekeepers, with their various gradesof jobbers, wholesalers, retailers, agents, commercial travelers, andmiddlemen of all sorts, with an excessive waste of energy in needlesstransportation and interminable handlings, is performed by one tenththe number of hands and an unnecessary turn of not one wheel. Somethingof what our distributing system is like you know. Our statisticianscalculate that one eightieth part of our workers suffices for all theprocesses of distribution which in your day required one eighth of thepopulation, so much being withdrawn from the force engaged inproductive labor. "

"I begin to see, " I said, "where you get your greater wealth. "

"I beg your pardon, " replied Dr. Leete, "but you scarcely do as yet. The economies I have mentioned thus far, in the aggregate, consideringthe labor they would save directly and indirectly through saving ofmaterial, might possibly be equivalent to the addition to your annualproduction of wealth of one half its former total. These items are, however, scarcely worth mentioning in comparison with other prodigiouswastes, now saved, which resulted inevitably from leaving theindustries of the nation to private enterprise. However great theeconomies your contemporaries might have devised in the consumption ofproducts, and however marvelous the progress of mechanical invention, they could never have raised themselves out of the slough of poverty solong as they held to that system. 

"No mode more wasteful for utilizing human energy could be devised, andfor the credit of the human intellect it should be remembered that thesystem never was devised, but was merely a survival from the rude ageswhen the lack of social organization made any sort of cooperationimpossible. "

"I will readily admit, " I said, "that our industrial system wasethically very bad, but as a mere wealth-making machine, apart frommoral aspects, it seemed to us admirable. "

"As I said, " responded the doctor, "the subject is too large to discussat length now, but if you are really interested to know the maincriticisms which we moderns make on your industrial system as comparedwith our own, I can touch briefly on some of them. 

"The wastes which resulted from leaving the conduct of industry toirresponsible individuals, wholly without mutual understanding orconcert, were mainly four: first, the waste by mistaken undertakings;second, the waste from the competition and mutual hostility of thoseengaged in industry; third, the waste by periodical gluts and crises, with the consequent interruptions of industry; fourth, the waste fromidle capital and labor, at all times. Any one of these four greatleaks, were all the others stopped, would suffice to make thedifference between wealth and poverty on the part of a nation. 

"Take the waste by mistaken undertakings, to begin with. In your daythe production and distribution of commodities being without concert ororganization, there was no means of knowing just what demand there wasfor any class of products, or what was the rate of supply. Therefore, any enterprise by a private capitalist was always a doubtfulexperiment. The projector having no general view of the field ofindustry and consumption, such as our government has, could never besure either what the people wanted, or what arrangements othercapitalists were making to supply them. In view of this, we are notsurprised to learn that the chances were considered several to one infavor of the failure of any given business enterprise, and that it wascommon for persons who at last succeeded in making a hit to have failedrepeatedly. If a shoemaker, for every pair of shoes he succeeded incompleting, spoiled the leather of four or five pair, besides losingthe time spent on them, he would stand about the same chance of gettingrich as your contemporaries did with their system of privateenterprise, and its average of four or five failures to one success. 

"The next of the great wastes was that from competition. The field ofindustry was a battlefield as wide as the world, in which the workerswasted, in assailing one another, energies which, if expended inconcerted effort, as to-day, would have enriched all. As for mercy orquarter in this warfare, there was absolutely no suggestion of it. Todeliberately enter a field of business and destroy the enterprises ofthose who had occupied it previously, in order to plant one's ownenterprise on their ruins, was an achievement which never failed tocommand popular admiration. Nor is there any stretch of fancy incomparing this sort of struggle with actual warfare, so far as concernsthe mental agony and physical suffering which attended the struggle, and the misery which overwhelmed the defeated and those dependent onthem. Now nothing about your age is, at first sight, more astounding toa man of modern times than the fact that men engaged in the sameindustry, instead of fraternizing as comrades and co-laborers to acommon end, should have regarded each other as rivals and enemies to bethrottled and overthrown. This certainly seems like sheer madness, ascene from bedlam. But more closely regarded, it is seen to be no suchthing. Your contemporaries, with their mutual throat-cutting, knew verywell what they were at. The producers of the nineteenth century werenot, like ours, working together for the maintenance of the community, but each solely for his own maintenance at the expense of thecommunity. If, in working to this end, he at the same time increasedthe aggregate wealth, that was merely incidental. It was just asfeasible and as common to increase one's private hoard by practicesinjurious to the general welfare. One's worst enemies were necessarilythose of his own trade, for, under your plan of making private profitthe motive of production, a scarcity of the article he produced waswhat each particular producer desired. It was for his interest that nomore of it should be produced than he himself could produce. To securethis consummation as far as circumstances permitted, by killing off anddiscouraging those engaged in his line of industry, was his constanteffort. When he had killed off all he could, his policy was to combinewith those he could not kill, and convert their mutual warfare into awarfare upon the public at large by cornering the market, as I believeyou used to call it, and putting up prices to the highest point peoplewould stand before going without the goods. The day dream of thenineteenth century producer was to gain absolute control of the supplyof some necessity of life, so that he might keep the public at theverge of starvation, and always command famine prices for what hesupplied. This, Mr. West, is what was called in the nineteenth centurya system of production. I will leave it to you if it does not seem, insome of its aspects, a great deal more like a system for preventingproduction. Some time when we have plenty of leisure I am going to askyou to sit down with me and try to make me comprehend, as I never yetcould, though I have studied the matter a great deal how such shrewdfellows as your contemporaries appear to have been in many respectsever came to entrust the business of providing for the community to aclass whose interest it was to starve it. I assure you that the wonderwith us is, not that the world did not get rich under such a system, but that it did not perish outright from want. This wonder increases aswe go on to consider some of the other prodigious wastes thatcharacterized it. 

"Apart from the waste of labor and capital by misdirected industry, andthat from the constant bloodletting of your industrial warfare, yoursystem was liable to periodical convulsions, overwhelming alike thewise and unwise, the successful cut-throat as well as his victim. Irefer to the business crises at intervals of five to ten years, whichwrecked the industries of the nation, prostrating all weak enterprisesand crippling the strongest, and were followed by long periods, oftenof many years, of so-called dull times, during which the capitalistsslowly regathered their dissipated strength while the laboring classesstarved and rioted. Then would ensue another brief season ofprosperity, followed in turn by another crisis and the ensuing years ofexhaustion. As commerce developed, making the nations mutuallydependent, these crises became world-wide, while the obstinacy of theensuing state of collapse increased with the area affected by theconvulsions, and the consequent lack of rallying centres. In proportionas the industries of the world multiplied and became complex, and thevolume of capital involved was increased, these business cataclysmsbecame more frequent, till, in the latter part of the nineteenthcentury, there were two years of bad times to one of good, and thesystem of industry, never before so extended or so imposing, seemed indanger of collapsing by its own weight. After endless discussions, youreconomists appear by that time to have settled down to the despairingconclusion that there was no more possibility of preventing orcontrolling these crises than if they had been drouths or hurricanes. It only remained to endure them as necessary evils, and when they hadpassed over to build up again the shattered structure of industry, asdwellers in an earthquake country keep on rebuilding their cities onthe same site. 

"So far as considering the causes of the trouble inherent in theirindustrial system, your contemporaries were certainly correct. Theywere in its very basis, and must needs become more and more maleficentas the business fabric grew in size and complexity. One of these causeswas the lack of any common control of the different industries, and theconsequent impossibility of their orderly and coordinate development. It inevitably resulted from this lack that they were continuallygetting out of step with one another and out of relation with thedemand. 

"Of the latter there was no criterion such as organized distributiongives us, and the first notice that it had been exceeded in any groupof industries was a crash of prices, bankruptcy of producers, stoppageof production, reduction of wages, or discharge of workmen. Thisprocess was constantly going on in many industries, even in what werecalled good times, but a crisis took place only when the industriesaffected were extensive. The markets then were glutted with goods, ofwhich nobody wanted beyond a sufficiency at any price. The wages andprofits of those making the glutted classes of goods being reduced orwholly stopped, their purchasing power as consumers of other classes ofgoods, of which there were no natural glut, was taken away, and, as aconsequence, goods of which there was no natural glut becameartificially glutted, till their prices also were broken down, andtheir makers thrown out of work and deprived of income. The crisis wasby this time fairly under way, and nothing could check it till anation's ransom had been wasted. 

"A cause, also inherent in your system, which often produced and alwaysterribly aggravated crises, was the machinery of money and credit. Money was essential when production was in many private hands, andbuying and selling was necessary to secure what one wanted. It was, however, open to the obvious objection of substituting for food, clothing, and other things a merely conventional representative ofthem. The confusion of mind which this favored, between goods and theirrepresentative, led the way to the credit system and its prodigiousillusions. Already accustomed to accept money for commodities, thepeople next accepted promises for money, and ceased to look at allbehind the representative for the thing represented. Money was a signof real commodities, but credit was but the sign of a sign. There was anatural limit to gold and silver, that is, money proper, but none tocredit, and the result was that the volume of credit, that is, thepromises of money, ceased to bear any ascertainable proportion to themoney, still less to the commodities, actually in existence. Under sucha system, frequent and periodical crises were necessitated by a law asabsolute as that which brings to the ground a structure overhanging itscentre of gravity. It was one of your fictions that the government andthe banks authorized by it alone issued money; but everybody who gave adollar's credit issued money to that extent, which was as good as anyto swell the circulation till the next crises. The great extension ofthe credit system was a characteristic of the latter part of thenineteenth century, and accounts largely for the almost incessantbusiness crises which marked that period. Perilous as credit was, youcould not dispense with its use, for, lacking any national or otherpublic organization of the capital of the country, it was the onlymeans you had for concentrating and directing it upon industrialenterprises. It was in this way a most potent means for exaggeratingthe chief peril of the private enterprise system of industry byenabling particular industries to absorb disproportionate amounts ofthe disposable capital of the country, and thus prepare disaster. Business enterprises were always vastly in debt for advances of credit, both to one another and to the banks and capitalists, and the promptwithdrawal of this credit at the first sign of a crisis was generallythe precipitating cause of it. 

"It was the misfortune of your contemporaries that they had to cementtheir business fabric with a material which an accident might at anymoment turn into an explosive. They were in the plight of a manbuilding a house with dynamite for mortar, for credit can be comparedwith nothing else. 

"If you would see how needless were these convulsions of business whichI have been speaking of, and how entirely they resulted from leavingindustry to private and unorganized management, just consider theworking of our system. Overproduction in special lines, which was thegreat hobgoblin of your day, is impossible now, for by the connectionbetween distribution and production supply is geared to demand like anengine to the governor which regulates its speed. Even suppose by anerror of judgment an excessive production of some commodity. Theconsequent slackening or cessation of production in that line throwsnobody out of employment. The suspended workers are at once foundoccupation in some other department of the vast workshop and lose onlythe time spent in changing, while, as for the glut, the business of thenation is large enough to carry any amount of product manufactured inexcess of demand till the latter overtakes it. In such a case ofover-production, as I have supposed, there is not with us, as with you, any complex machinery to get out of order and magnify a thousand timesthe original mistake. Of course, having not even money, we still lesshave credit. All estimates deal directly with the real things, theflour, iron, wood, wool, and labor, of which money and credit were foryou the very misleading representatives. In our calculation of costthere can be no mistakes. Out of the annual product the amountnecessary for the support of the people is taken, and the requisitelabor to produce the next year's consumption provided for. The residueof the material and labor represents what can be safely expended inimprovements. If the crops are bad, the surplus for that year is lessthan usual, that is all. Except for slight occasional effects of suchnatural causes, there are no fluctuations of business; the materialprosperity of the nation flows on uninterruptedly from generation togeneration, like an ever broadening and deepening river. 

"Your business crises, Mr. West, " continued the doctor, "like either ofthe great wastes I mentioned before, were enough, alone, to have keptyour noses to the grindstone forever; but I have still to speak of oneother great cause of your poverty, and that was the idleness of a greatpart of your capital and labor. With us it is the business of theadministration to keep in constant employment every ounce of availablecapital and labor in the country. In your day there was no generalcontrol of either capital or labor, and a large part of both failed tofind employment. 'Capital, ' you used to say, 'is naturally timid, ' andit would certainly have been reckless if it had not been timid in anepoch when there was a large preponderance of probability that anyparticular business venture would end in failure. There was no timewhen, if security could have been guaranteed it, the amount of capitaldevoted to productive industry could not have been greatly increased. The proportion of it so employed underwent constant extraordinaryfluctuations, according to the greater or less feeling of uncertaintyas to the stability of the industrial situation, so that the output ofthe national industries greatly varied in different years. But for thesame reason that the amount of capital employed at times of specialinsecurity was far less than at times of somewhat greater security, avery large proportion was never employed at all, because the hazard ofbusiness was always very great in the best of times. 

"It should be also noted that the great amount of capital alwaysseeking employment where tolerable safety could be insured terriblyembittered the competition between capitalists when a promising openingpresented itself. The idleness of capital, the result of its timidity, of course meant the idleness of labor in corresponding degree. Moreover, every change in the adjustments of business, every slightestalteration in the condition of commerce or manufactures, not to speakof the innumerable business failures that took place yearly, even inthe best of times, were constantly throwing a multitude of men out ofemployment for periods of weeks or months, or even years. A greatnumber of these seekers after employment were constantly traversing thecountry, becoming in time professional vagabonds, then criminals. 'Giveus work!' was the cry of an army of the unemployed at nearly allseasons, and in seasons of dullness in business this army swelled to ahost so vast and desperate as to threaten the stability of thegovernment. Could there conceivably be a more conclusive demonstrationof the imbecility of the system of private enterprise as a method forenriching a nation than the fact that, in an age of such generalpoverty and want of everything, capitalists had to throttle one anotherto find a safe chance to invest their capital and workmen rioted andburned because they could find no work to do?

"Now, Mr. West, " continued Dr. Leete, "I want you to bear in mind thatthese points of which I have been speaking indicate only negatively theadvantages of the national organization of industry by showing certainfatal defects and prodigious imbecilities of the systems of privateenterprise which are not found in it. These alone, you must admit, would pretty well explain why the nation is so much richer than in yourday. But the larger half of our advantage over you, the positive sideof it, I have yet barely spoken of. Supposing the system of privateenterprise in industry were without any of the great leaks I havementioned; that there were no waste on account of misdirected effortgrowing out of mistakes as to the demand, and inability to command ageneral view of the industrial field. Suppose, also, there were noneutralizing and duplicating of effort from competition. Suppose, also, there were no waste from business panics and crises through bankruptcyand long interruptions of industry, and also none from the idleness ofcapital and labor. Supposing these evils, which are essential to theconduct of industry by capital in private hands, could all bemiraculously prevented, and the system yet retained; even then thesuperiority of the results attained by the modern industrial system ofnational control would remain overwhelming. 

"You used to have some pretty large textile manufacturingestablishments, even in your day, although not comparable with ours. Nodoubt you have visited these great mills in your time, covering acresof ground, employing thousands of hands, and combining under one roof, under one control, the hundred distinct processes between, say, thecotton bale and the bale of glossy calicoes. You have admired the vasteconomy of labor as of mechanical force resulting from the perfectinterworking with the rest of every wheel and every hand. No doubt youhave reflected how much less the same force of workers employed in thatfactory would accomplish if they were scattered, each man workingindependently. Would you think it an exaggeration to say that theutmost product of those workers, working thus apart, however amicabletheir relations might be, was increased not merely by a percentage, butmany fold, when their efforts were organized under one control? Wellnow, Mr. West, the organization of the industry of the nation under asingle control, so that all its processes interlock, has multiplied thetotal product over the utmost that could be done under the formersystem, even leaving out of account the four great wastes mentioned, inthe same proportion that the product of those millworkers was increasedby cooperation. The effectiveness of the working force of a nation, under the myriad-headed leadership of private capital, even if theleaders were not mutual enemies, as compared with that which it attainsunder a single head, may be likened to the military efficiency of amob, or a horde of barbarians with a thousand petty chiefs, as comparedwith that of a disciplined army under one general--such a fightingmachine, for example, as the German army in the time of Von Moltke. "

"After what you have told me, " I said, "I do not so much wonder thatthe nation is richer now than then, but that you are not all Croesuses. "

"Well, " replied Dr. Leete, "we are pretty well off. The rate at whichwe live is as luxurious as we could wish. The rivalry of ostentation, which in your day led to extravagance in no way conducive to comfort, finds no place, of course, in a society of people absolutely equal inresources, and our ambition stops at the surroundings which minister tothe enjoyment of life. We might, indeed, have much larger incomes, individually, if we chose so to use the surplus of our product, but weprefer to expend it upon public works and pleasures in which all share, upon public halls and buildings, art galleries, bridges, statuary, means of transit, and the conveniences of our cities, great musical andtheatrical exhibitions, and in providing on a vast scale for therecreations of the people. You have not begun to see how we live yet, Mr. West. At home we have comfort, but the splendor of our life is, onits social side, that which we share with our fellows. When you knowmore of it you will see where the money goes, as you used to say, and Ithink you will agree that we do well so to expend it. "

"I suppose, " observed Dr. Leete, as we strolled homeward from thedining hall, "that no reflection would have cut the men of yourwealth-worshiping century more keenly than the suggestion that they didnot know how to make money. Nevertheless that is just the verdicthistory has passed on them. Their system of unorganized andantagonistic industries was as absurd economically as it was morallyabominable. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrialproduction selfishness is suicide. Competition, which is the instinctof selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, whilecombination is the secret of efficient production; and not till theidea of increasing the individual hoard gives place to the idea ofincreasing the common stock can industrial combination be realized, andthe acquisition of wealth really begin. Even if the principle of shareand share alike for all men were not the only humane and rational basisfor a society, we should still enforce it as economically expedient, seeing that until the disintegrating influence of self-seeking issuppressed no true concert of industry is possible. "

Chapter 23

That evening, as I sat with Edith in the music room, listening to somepieces in the programme of that day which had attracted my notice, Itook advantage of an interval in the music to say, "I have a questionto ask you which I fear is rather indiscreet. "

"I am quite sure it is not that, " she replied, encouragingly. 

"I am in the position of an eavesdropper, " I continued, "who, havingoverheard a little of a matter not intended for him, though seeming toconcern him, has the impudence to come to the speaker for the rest. "

"An eavesdropper!" she repeated, looking puzzled. 

"Yes, " I said, "but an excusable one, as I think you will admit. "

"This is very mysterious, " she replied. 

"Yes, " said I, "so mysterious that often I have doubted whether Ireally overheard at all what I am going to ask you about, or onlydreamed it. I want you to tell me. The matter is this: When I wascoming out of that sleep of a century, the first impression of which Iwas conscious was of voices talking around me, voices that afterwards Irecognized as your father's, your mother's, and your own. First, Iremember your father's voice saying, "He is going to open his eyes. Hehad better see but one person at first. " Then you said, if I did notdream it all, "Promise me, then, that you will not tell him. " Yourfather seemed to hesitate about promising, but you insisted, and yourmother interposing, he finally promised, and when I opened my eyes Isaw only him. "

I had been quite serious when I said that I was not sure that I had notdreamed the conversation I fancied I had overheard, so incomprehensiblewas it that these people should know anything of me, a contemporary oftheir great-grandparents, which I did not know myself. But when I sawthe effect of my words upon Edith, I knew that it was no dream, butanother mystery, and a more puzzling one than any I had beforeencountered. For from the moment that the drift of my question becameapparent, she showed indications of the most acute embarrassment. Hereyes, always so frank and direct in expression, had dropped in a panicbefore mine, while her face crimsoned from neck to forehead. 

"Pardon me, " I said, as soon as I had recovered from bewilderment atthe extraordinary effect of my words. "It seems, then, that I was notdreaming. There is some secret, something about me, which you arewithholding from me. Really, doesn't it seem a little hard that aperson in my position should not be given all the information possibleconcerning himself?"

"It does not concern you--that is, not directly. It is not about youexactly, " she replied, scarcely audibly. 

"But it concerns me in some way, " I persisted. "It must be somethingthat would interest me. "

"I don't know even that, " she replied, venturing a momentary glance atmy face, furiously blushing, and yet with a quaint smile flickeringabout her lips which betrayed a certain perception of humor in thesituation despite its embarrassment, --"I am not sure that it would eveninterest you. "

"Your father would have told me, " I insisted, with an accent ofreproach. "It was you who forbade him. He thought I ought to know. "

She did not reply. She was so entirely charming in her confusion that Iwas now prompted, as much by the desire to prolong the situation as bymy original curiosity, to importune her further. 

"Am I never to know? Will you never tell me?" I said. 

"It depends, " she answered, after a long pause. 

"On what?" I persisted. 

"Ah, you ask too much, " she replied. Then, raising to mine a face whichinscrutable eyes, flushed cheeks, and smiling lips combined to renderperfectly bewitching, she added, "What should you think if I said thatit depended on--yourself?"

"On myself?" I echoed. "How can that possibly be?"

"Mr. West, we are losing some charming music, " was her only reply tothis, and turning to the telephone, at a touch of her finger she setthe air to swaying to the rhythm of an adagio. After that she took goodcare that the music should leave no opportunity for conversation. Shekept her face averted from me, and pretended to be absorbed in theairs, but that it was a mere pretense the crimson tide standing atflood in her cheeks sufficiently betrayed. 

When at length she suggested that I might have heard all I cared to, for that time, and we rose to leave the room, she came straight up tome and said, without raising her eyes, "Mr. West, you say I have beengood to you. I have not been particularly so, but if you think I have, I want you to promise me that you will not try again to make me tellyou this thing you have asked to-night, and that you will not try tofind it out from any one else, --my father or mother, for instance. "

To such an appeal there was but one reply possible. "Forgive me fordistressing you. Of course I will promise, " I said. "I would never haveasked you if I had fancied it could distress you. But do you blame mefor being curious?"

"I do not blame you at all. "

"And some time, " I added, "if I do not tease you, you may tell me ofyour own accord. May I not hope so?"

"Perhaps, " she murmured. 

"Only perhaps?"

Looking up, she read my face with a quick, deep glance. "Yes, " shesaid, "I think I may tell you--some time": and so our conversationended, for she gave me no chance to say anything more. 

That night I don't think even Dr. Pillsbury could have put me to sleep, till toward morning at least. Mysteries had been my accustomed food fordays now, but none had before confronted me at once so mysterious andso fascinating as this, the solution of which Edith Leete had forbiddenme even to seek. It was a double mystery. How, in the first place, wasit conceivable that she should know any secret about me, a strangerfrom a strange age? In the second place, even if she should know such asecret, how account for the agitating effect which the knowledge of itseemed to have upon her? There are puzzles so difficult that one cannoteven get so far as a conjecture as to the solution, and this seemed oneof them. I am usually of too practical a turn to waste time on suchconundrums; but the difficulty of a riddle embodied in a beautifulyoung girl does not detract from its fascination. In general, no doubt, maidens' blushes may be safely assumed to tell the same tale to youngmen in all ages and races, but to give that interpretation to Edith'scrimson cheeks would, considering my position and the length of time Ihad known her, and still more the fact that this mystery dated frombefore I had known her at all, be a piece of utter fatuity. And yet shewas an angel, and I should not have been a young man if reason andcommon sense had been able quite to banish a roseate tinge from mydreams that night. 

Chapter 24

In the morning I went down stairs early in the hope of seeing Edithalone. In this, however, I was disappointed. Not finding her in thehouse, I sought her in the garden, but she was not there. In the courseof my wanderings I visited the underground chamber, and sat down thereto rest. Upon the reading table in the chamber several periodicals andnewspapers lay, and thinking that Dr. Leete might be interested inglancing over a Boston daily of 1887, I brought one of the papers withme into the house when I came. 

At breakfast I met Edith. She blushed as she greeted me, but wasperfectly self-possessed. As we sat at table, Dr. Leete amused himselfwith looking over the paper I had brought in. There was in it, as inall the newspapers of that date, a great deal about the labor troubles, strikes, lockouts, boycotts, the programmes of labor parties, and thewild threats of the anarchists. 

"By the way, " said I, as the doctor read aloud to us some of theseitems, "what part did the followers of the red flag take in theestablishment of the new order of things? They were making considerablenoise the last thing that I knew. "

"They had nothing to do with it except to hinder it, of course, "replied Dr. Leete. "They did that very effectually while they lasted, for their talk so disgusted people as to deprive the best consideredprojects for social reform of a hearing. The subsidizing of thosefellows was one of the shrewdest moves of the opponents of reform. "

"Subsidizing them!" I exclaimed in astonishment. 

"Certainly, " replied Dr. Leete. "No historical authority nowadaysdoubts that they were paid by the great monopolies to wave the red flagand talk about burning, sacking, and blowing people up, in order, byalarming the timid, to head off any real reforms. What astonishes memost is that you should have fallen into the trap so unsuspectingly. "

"What are your grounds for believing that the red flag party wassubsidized?" I inquired. 

"Why simply because they must have seen that their course made athousand enemies of their professed cause to one friend. Not to supposethat they were hired for the work is to credit them with aninconceivable folly. [1] In the United States, of all countries, noparty could intelligently expect to carry its point without firstwinning over to its ideas a majority of the nation, as the nationalparty eventually did. "

"The national party!" I exclaimed. "That must have arisen after my day. I suppose it was one of the labor parties. "

"Oh no!" replied the doctor. "The labor parties, as such, never couldhave accomplished anything on a large or permanent scale. For purposesof national scope, their basis as merely class organizations was toonarrow. It was not till a rearrangement of the industrial and socialsystem on a higher ethical basis, and for the more efficient productionof wealth, was recognized as the interest, not of one class, butequally of all classes, of rich and poor, cultured and ignorant, oldand young, weak and strong, men and women, that there was any prospectthat it would be achieved. Then the national party arose to carry itout by political methods. It probably took that name because its aimwas to nationalize the functions of production and distribution. Indeed, it could not well have had any other name, for its purpose wasto realize the idea of the nation with a grandeur and completenessnever before conceived, not as an association of men for certain merelypolitical functions affecting their happiness only remotely andsuperficially, but as a family, a vital union, a common life, a mightyheaven-touching tree whose leaves are its people, fed from its veins, and feeding it in turn. The most patriotic of all possible parties, itsought to justify patriotism and raise it from an instinct to arational devotion, by making the native land truly a father land, afather who kept the people alive and was not merely an idol for whichthey were expected to die. "

[1] I fully admit the difficulty of accounting for the course of theanarchists on any other theory than that they were subsidized by thecapitalists, but at the same time, there is no doubt that the theory iswholly erroneous. It certainly was not held at the time by any one, though it may seem so obvious in the retrospect. 

Chapter 25

The personality of Edith Leete had naturally impressed me strongly eversince I had come, in so strange a manner, to be an inmate of herfather's house, and it was to be expected that after what had happenedthe night previous, I should be more than ever preoccupied withthoughts of her. From the first I had been struck with the air ofserene frankness and ingenuous directness, more like that of a nobleand innocent boy than any girl I had ever known, which characterizedher. I was curious to know how far this charming quality might bepeculiar to herself, and how far possibly a result of alterations inthe social position of women which might have taken place since mytime. Finding an opportunity that day, when alone with Dr. Leete, Iturned the conversation in that direction. 

"I suppose, " I said, "that women nowadays, having been relieved of theburden of housework, have no employment but the cultivation of theircharms and graces. "

"So far as we men are concerned, " replied Dr. Leete, "we shouldconsider that they amply paid their way, to use one of your forms ofexpression, if they confined themselves to that occupation, but you maybe very sure that they have quite too much spirit to consent to be merebeneficiaries of society, even as a return for ornamenting it. Theydid, indeed, welcome their riddance from housework, because that wasnot only exceptionally wearing in itself, but also wasteful, in theextreme, of energy, as compared with the cooperative plan; but theyaccepted relief from that sort of work only that they might contributein other and more effectual, as well as more agreeable, ways to thecommon weal. Our women, as well as our men, are members of theindustrial army, and leave it only when maternal duties claim them. Theresult is that most women, at one time or another of their lives, serveindustrially some five or ten or fifteen years, while those who have nochildren fill out the full term. "

"A woman does not, then, necessarily leave the industrial service onmarriage?" I queried. 

"No more than a man, " replied the doctor. "Why on earth should she?Married women have no housekeeping responsibilities now, you know, anda husband is not a baby that he should be cared for. "

"It was thought one of the most grievous features of our civilizationthat we required so much toil from women, " I said; "but it seems to meyou get more out of them than we did. "

Dr. Leete laughed. "Indeed we do, just as we do out of our men. Yet thewomen of this age are very happy, and those of the nineteenth century, unless contemporary references greatly mislead us, were very miserable. The reason that women nowadays are so much more efficient colaborerswith the men, and at the same time are so happy, is that, in regard totheir work as well as men's, we follow the principle of providing everyone the kind of occupation he or she is best adapted to. Women beinginferior in strength to men, and further disqualified industrially inspecial ways, the kinds of occupation reserved for them, and theconditions under which they pursue them, have reference to these facts. The heavier sorts of work are everywhere reserved for men, the lighteroccupations for women. Under no circumstances is a woman permitted tofollow any employment not perfectly adapted, both as to kind and degreeof labor, to her sex. Moreover, the hours of women's work areconsiderably shorter than those of men's, more frequent vacations aregranted, and the most careful provision is made for rest when needed. The men of this day so well appreciate that they owe to the beauty andgrace of women the chief zest of their lives and their main incentiveto effort, that they permit them to work at all only because it isfully understood that a certain regular requirement of labor, of a sortadapted to their powers, is well for body and mind, during the periodof maximum physical vigor. We believe that the magnificent health whichdistinguishes our women from those of your day, who seem to have beenso generally sickly, is owing largely to the fact that all alike arefurnished with healthful and inspiriting occupation. "

"I understood you, " I said, "that the women-workers belong to the armyof industry, but how can they be under the same system of ranking anddiscipline with the men, when the conditions of their labor are sodifferent?"

"They are under an entirely different discipline, " replied Dr. Leete, "and constitute rather an allied force than an integral part of thearmy of the men. They have a woman general-in-chief and are underexclusively feminine regime. This general, as also the higher officers, is chosen by the body of women who have passed the time of service, incorrespondence with the manner in which the chiefs of the masculinearmy and the President of the nation are elected. The general of thewomen's army sits in the cabinet of the President and has a veto onmeasures respecting women's work, pending appeals to Congress. I shouldhave said, in speaking of the judiciary, that we have women on thebench, appointed by the general of the women, as well as men. Causes inwhich both parties are women are determined by women judges, and wherea man and a woman are parties to a case, a judge of either sex mustconsent to the verdict. "

"Womanhood seems to be organized as a sort of imperium in imperio inyour system, " I said. 

"To some extent, " Dr. Leete replied; "but the inner imperium is onefrom which you will admit there is not likely to be much danger to thenation. The lack of some such recognition of the distinct individualityof the sexes was one of the innumerable defects of your society. Thepassional attraction between men and women has too often prevented aperception of the profound differences which make the members of eachsex in many things strange to the other, and capable of sympathy onlywith their own. It is in giving full play to the differences of sexrather than in seeking to obliterate them, as was apparently the effortof some reformers in your day, that the enjoyment of each by itself andthe piquancy which each has for the other, are alike enhanced. In yourday there was no career for women except in an unnatural rivalry withmen. We have given them a world of their own, with its emulations, ambitions, and careers, and I assure you they are very happy in it. Itseems to us that women were more than any other class the victims ofyour civilization. There is something which, even at this distance oftime, penetrates one with pathos in the spectacle of their ennuied, undeveloped lives, stunted at marriage, their narrow horizon, boundedso often, physically, by the four walls of home, and morally by a pettycircle of personal interests. I speak now, not of the poorer classes, who were generally worked to death, but also of the well-to-do andrich. From the great sorrows, as well as the petty frets of life, theyhad no refuge in the breezy outdoor world of human affairs, nor anyinterests save those of the family. Such an existence would havesoftened men's brains or driven them mad. All that is changed to-day. No woman is heard nowadays wishing she were a man, nor parents desiringboy rather than girl children. Our girls are as full of ambition fortheir careers as our boys. Marriage, when it comes, does not meanincarceration for them, nor does it separate them in any way from thelarger interests of society, the bustling life of the world. Only whenmaternity fills a woman's mind with new interests does she withdrawfrom the world for a time. Afterward, and at any time, she may returnto her place among her comrades, nor need she ever lose touch withthem. Women are a very happy race nowadays, as compared with what theyever were before in the world's history, and their power of givinghappiness to men has been of course increased in proportion. "

"I should imagine it possible, " I said, "that the interest which girlstake in their careers as members of the industrial army and candidatesfor its distinctions might have an effect to deter them from marriage. "

Dr. Leete smiled. "Have no anxiety on that score, Mr. West, " hereplied. "The Creator took very good care that whatever othermodifications the dispositions of men and women might with time takeon, their attraction for each other should remain constant. The merefact that in an age like yours, when the struggle for existence musthave left people little time for other thoughts, and the future was souncertain that to assume parental responsibilities must have oftenseemed like a criminal risk, there was even then marrying and giving inmarriage, should be conclusive on this point. As for love nowadays, oneof our authors says that the vacuum left in the minds of men and womenby the absence of care for one's livelihood has been entirely taken upby the tender passion. That, however, I beg you to believe, issomething of an exaggestion. For the rest, so far is marriage frombeing an interference with a woman's career, that the higher positionsin the feminine army of industry are intrusted only to women who havebeen both wives and mothers, as they alone fully represent their sex. "

"Are credit cards issued to the women just as to the men?"

"Certainly. "

"The credits of the women, I suppose, are for smaller sums, owing tothe frequent suspension of their labor on account of familyresponsibilities. "

"Smaller!" exclaimed Dr. Leete, "oh, no! The maintenance of all ourpeople is the same. There are no exceptions to that rule, but if anydifference were made on account of the interruptions you speak of, itwould be by making the woman's credit larger, not smaller. Can youthink of any service constituting a stronger claim on the nation'sgratitude than bearing and nursing the nation's children? According toour view, none deserve so well of the world as good parents. There isno task so unselfish, so necessarily without return, though the heartis well rewarded, as the nurture of the children who are to make theworld for one another when we are gone. "

"It would seem to follow, from what you have said, that wives are in noway dependent on their husbands for maintenance. "

"Of course they are not, " replied Dr. Leete, "nor children on theirparents either, that is, for means of support, though of course theyare for the offices of affection. The child's labor, when he grows up, will go to increase the common stock, not his parents', who will bedead, and therefore he is properly nurtured out of the common stock. The account of every person, man, woman, and child, you mustunderstand, is always with the nation directly, and never through anyintermediary, except, of course, that parents, to a certain extent, actfor children as their guardians. You see that it is by virtue of therelation of individuals to the nation, of their membership in it, thatthey are entitled to support; and this title is in no way connectedwith or affected by their relations to other individuals who are fellowmembers of the nation with them. That any person should be dependentfor the means of support upon another would be shocking to the moralsense as well as indefensible on any rational social theory. What wouldbecome of personal liberty and dignity under such an arrangement? I amaware that you called yourselves free in the nineteenth century. Themeaning of the word could not then, however, have been at all what itis at present, or you certainly would not have applied it to a societyof which nearly every member was in a position of galling personaldependence upon others as to the very means of life, the poor upon therich, or employed upon employer, women upon men, children upon parents. Instead of distributing the product of the nation directly to itsmembers, which would seem the most natural and obvious method, it wouldactually appear that you had given your minds to devising a plan ofhand to hand distribution, involving the maximum of personalhumiliation to all classes of recipients. 

"As regards the dependence of women upon men for support, which thenwas usual, of course, natural attraction in case of marriages of lovemay often have made it endurable, though for spirited women I shouldfancy it must always have remained humiliating. What, then, must ithave been in the innumerable cases where women, with or without theform of marriage, had to sell themselves to men to get their living?Even your contemporaries, callous as they were to most of the revoltingaspects of their society, seem to have had an idea that this was notquite as it should be; but, it was still only for pity's sake that theydeplored the lot of the women. It did not occur to them that it wasrobbery as well as cruelty when men seized for themselves the wholeproduct of the world and left women to beg and wheedle for their share. Why--but bless me, Mr. West, I am really running on at a remarkablerate, just as if the robbery, the sorrow, and the shame which thosepoor women endured were not over a century since, or as if you wereresponsible for what you no doubt deplored as much as I do. "

"I must bear my share of responsibility for the world as it then was, "I replied. "All I can say in extenuation is that until the nation wasripe for the present system of organized production and distribution, no radical improvement in the position of woman was possible. The rootof her disability, as you say, was her personal dependence upon man forher livelihood, and I can imagine no other mode of social organizationthan that you have adopted, which would have set woman free of man atthe same time that it set men free of one another. I suppose, by theway, that so entire a change in the position of women cannot have takenplace without affecting in marked ways the social relations of thesexes. That will be a very interesting study for me. "

"The change you will observe, " said Dr. Leete, "will chiefly be, Ithink, the entire frankness and unconstraint which now characterizesthose relations, as compared with the artificiality which seems to havemarked them in your time. The sexes now meet with the ease of perfectequals, suitors to each other for nothing but love. In your time thefact that women were dependent for support on men made the woman inreality the one chiefly benefited by marriage. This fact, so far as wecan judge from contemporary records, appears to have been coarselyenough recognized among the lower classes, while among the morepolished it was glossed over by a system of elaborate conventionalitieswhich aimed to carry the precisely opposite meaning, namely, that theman was the party chiefly benefited. To keep up this convention it wasessential that he should always seem the suitor. Nothing was thereforeconsidered more shocking to the proprieties than that a woman shouldbetray a fondness for a man before he had indicated a desire to marryher. Why, we actually have in our libraries books, by authors of yourday, written for no other purpose than to discuss the question whether, under any conceivable circumstances, a woman might, without discreditto her sex, reveal an unsolicited love. All this seems exquisitelyabsurd to us, and yet we know that, given your circumstances, theproblem might have a serious side. When for a woman to proffer her loveto a man was in effect to invite him to assume the burden of hersupport, it is easy to see that pride and delicacy might well havechecked the promptings of the heart. When you go out into our society, Mr. West, you must be prepared to be often cross-questioned on thispoint by our young people, who are naturally much interested in thisaspect of old-fashioned manners. "[1]

"And so the girls of the twentieth century tell their love. "

"If they choose, " replied Dr. Leete. "There is no more pretense of aconcealment of feeling on their part than on the part of their lovers. Coquetry would be as much despised in a girl as in a man. Affectedcoldness, which in your day rarely deceived a lover, would deceive himwholly now, for no one thinks of practicing it. "

"One result which must follow from the independence of women I can seefor myself, " I said. "There can be no marriages now except those ofinclination. "

"That is a matter of course, " replied Dr. Leete. 

"Think of a world in which there are nothing but matches of pure love!Ah me, Dr. Leete, how far you are from being able to understand what anastonishing phenomenon such a world seems to a man of the nineteenthcentury!"

"I can, however, to some extent, imagine it, " replied the doctor. "Butthe fact you celebrate, that there are nothing but love matches, meanseven more, perhaps, than you probably at first realize. It means thatfor the first time in human history the principle of sexual selection, with its tendency to preserve and transmit the better types of therace, and let the inferior types drop out, has unhindered operation. The necessities of poverty, the need of having a home, no longer temptwomen to accept as the fathers of their children men whom they neithercan love nor respect. Wealth and rank no longer divert attention frompersonal qualities. Gold no longer 'gilds the straitened forehead ofthe fool. ' The gifts of person, mind, and disposition; beauty, wit, eloquence, kindness, generosity, geniality, courage, are sure oftransmission to posterity. Every generation is sifted through a littlefiner mesh than the last. The attributes that human nature admires arepreserved, those that repel it are left behind. There are, of course, agreat many women who with love must mingle admiration, and seek to wedgreatly, but these not the less obey the same law, for to wed greatlynow is not to marry men of fortune or title, but those who have risenabove their fellows by the solidity or brilliance of their services tohumanity. These form nowadays the only aristocracy with which allianceis distinction. 

"You were speaking, a day or two ago, of the physical superiority ofour people to your contemporaries. Perhaps more important than any ofthe causes I mentioned then as tending to race purification has beenthe effect of untrammeled sexual selection upon the quality of two orthree successive generations. I believe that when you have made afuller study of our people you will find in them not only a physical, but a mental and moral improvement. It would be strange if it were notso, for not only is one of the great laws of nature now freely workingout the salvation of the race, but a profound moral sentiment has cometo its support. Individualism, which in your day was the animating ideaof society, not only was fatal to any vital sentiment of brotherhoodand common interest among living men, but equally to any realization ofthe responsibility of the living for the generation to follow. To-daythis sense of responsibility, practically unrecognized in all previousages, has become one of the great ethical ideas of the race, reinforcing, with an intense conviction of duty, the natural impulse toseek in marriage the best and noblest of the other sex. The result is, that not all the encouragements and incentives of every sort which wehave provided to develop industry, talent, genius, excellence ofwhatever kind, are comparable in their effect on our young men with thefact that our women sit aloft as judges of the race and reservethemselves to reward the winners. Of all the whips, and spurs, andbaits, and prizes, there is none like the thought of the radiant faceswhich the laggards will find averted. 

"Celibates nowadays are almost invariably men who have failed to acquitthemselves creditably in the work of life. The woman must be acourageous one, with a very evil sort of courage, too, whom pity forone of these unfortunates should lead to defy the opinion of hergeneration--for otherwise she is free--so far as to accept him for ahusband. I should add that, more exacting and difficult to resist thanany other element in that opinion, she would find the sentiment of herown sex. Our women have risen to the full height of theirresponsibility as the wardens of the world to come, to whose keepingthe keys of the future are confided. Their feeling of duty in thisrespect amounts to a sense of religious consecration. It is a cult inwhich they educate their daughters from childhood. "

After going to my room that night, I sat up late to read a romance ofBerrian, handed me by Dr. Leete, the plot of which turned on asituation suggested by his last words, concerning the modern view ofparental responsibility. A similar situation would almost certainlyhave been treated by a nineteenth century romancist so as to excite themorbid sympathy of the reader with the sentimental selfishness of thelovers, and his resentment toward the unwritten law which theyoutraged. I need not describe--for who has not read "Ruth Elton"?--howdifferent is the course which Berrian takes, and with what tremendouseffect he enforces the principle which he states: "Over the unborn ourpower is that of God, and our responsibility like His toward us. As weacquit ourselves toward them, so let Him deal with us. "

[1] I may say that Dr. Leete's warning has been fully justified by myexperience. The amount and intensity of amusement which the youngpeople of this day, and the young women especially, are able to extractfrom what they are pleased to call the oddities of courtship in thenineteenth century, appear unlimited. 

Chapter 26

I think if a person were ever excusable for losing track of the days ofthe week, the circumstances excused me. Indeed, if I had been told thatthe method of reckoning time had been wholly changed and the days werenow counted in lots of five, ten, or fifteen instead of seven, I shouldhave been in no way surprised after what I had already heard and seenof the twentieth century. The first time that any inquiry as to thedays of the week occurred to me was the morning following theconversation related in the last chapter. At the breakfast table Dr. Leete asked me if I would care to hear a sermon. 

"Is it Sunday, then?" I exclaimed. 

"Yes, " he replied. "It was on Friday, you see, when we made the luckydiscovery of the buried chamber to which we owe your society thismorning. It was on Saturday morning, soon after midnight, that youfirst awoke, and Sunday afternoon when you awoke the second time withfaculties fully regained. "

"So you still have Sundays and sermons, " I said. "We had prophets whoforetold that long before this time the world would have dispensed withboth. I am very curious to know how the ecclesiastical systems fit inwith the rest of your social arrangements. I suppose you have a sort ofnational church with official clergymen. "

Dr. Leete laughed, and Mrs. Leete and Edith seemed greatly amused. 

"Why, Mr. West, " Edith said, "what odd people you must think us. Youwere quite done with national religious establishments in thenineteenth century, and did you fancy we had gone back to them?"

"But how can voluntary churches and an unofficial clerical professionbe reconciled with national ownership of all buildings, and theindustrial service required of all men?" I answered. 

"The religious practices of the people have naturally changedconsiderably in a century, " replied Dr. Leete; "but supposing them tohave remained unchanged, our social system would accommodate themperfectly. The nation supplies any person or number of persons withbuildings on guarantee of the rent, and they remain tenants while theypay it. As for the clergymen, if a number of persons wish the servicesof an individual for any particular end of their own, apart from thegeneral service of the nation, they can always secure it, with thatindividual's own consent, of course, just as we secure the service ofour editors, by contributing from their credit cards an indemnity tothe nation for the loss of his services in general industry. Thisindemnity paid the nation for the individual answers to the salary inyour day paid to the individual himself; and the various applicationsof this principle leave private initiative full play in all details towhich national control is not applicable. Now, as to hearing a sermonto-day, if you wish to do so, you can either go to a church to hear itor stay at home. "

"How am I to hear it if I stay at home?"

"Simply by accompanying us to the music room at the proper hour andselecting an easy chair. There are some who still prefer to hearsermons in church, but most of our preaching, like our musicalperformances, is not in public, but delivered in acoustically preparedchambers, connected by wire with subscribers' houses. If you prefer togo to a church I shall be glad to accompany you, but I really don'tbelieve you are likely to hear anywhere a better discourse than youwill at home. I see by the paper that Mr. Barton is to preach thismorning, and he preaches only by telephone, and to audiences oftenreaching 150, 000. "

"The novelty of the experience of hearing a sermon under suchcircumstances would incline me to be one of Mr. Barton's hearers, iffor no other reason, " I said. 

An hour or two later, as I sat reading in the library, Edith came forme, and I followed her to the music room, where Dr. And Mrs. Leete werewaiting. We had not more than seated ourselves comfortably when thetinkle of a bell was heard, and a few moments after the voice of a man, at the pitch of ordinary conversation, addressed us, with an effect ofproceeding from an invisible person in the room. This was what thevoice said:

MR. BARTON'S SERMON

"We have had among us, during the past week, a critic from thenineteenth century, a living representative of the epoch of ourgreat-grandparents. It would be strange if a fact so extraordinary hadnot somewhat strongly affected our imaginations. Perhaps most of ushave been stimulated to some effort to realize the society of a centuryago, and figure to ourselves what it must have been like to live then. In inviting you now to consider certain reflections upon this subjectwhich have occurred to me, I presume that I shall rather follow thandivert the course of your own thoughts. "

Edith whispered something to her father at this point, to which henodded assent and turned to me. 

"Mr. West, " he said, "Edith suggests that you may find it slightlyembarrassing to listen to a discourse on the lines Mr. Barton is layingdown, and if so, you need not be cheated out of a sermon. She willconnect us with Mr. Sweetser's speaking room if you say so, and I canstill promise you a very good discourse. "

"No, no, " I said. "Believe me, I would much rather hear what Mr. Bartonhas to say. "

"As you please, " replied my host. 

When her father spoke to me Edith had touched a screw, and the voice ofMr. Barton had ceased abruptly. Now at another touch the room was oncemore filled with the earnest sympathetic tones which had alreadyimpressed me most favorably. 

"I venture to assume that one effect has been common with us as aresult of this effort at retrospection, and that it has been to leaveus more than ever amazed at the stupendous change which one briefcentury has made in the material and moral conditions of humanity. 

"Still, as regards the contrast between the poverty of the nation andthe world in the nineteenth century and their wealth now, it is notgreater, possibly, than had been before seen in human history, perhapsnot greater, for example, than that between the poverty of this countryduring the earliest colonial period of the seventeenth century and therelatively great wealth it had attained at the close of the nineteenth, or between the England of William the Conqueror and that of Victoria. Although the aggregate riches of a nation did not then, as now, affordany accurate criterion of the masses of its people, yet instances likethese afford partial parallels for the merely material side of thecontrast between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It is whenwe contemplate the moral aspect of that contrast that we find ourselvesin the presence of a phenomenon for which history offers no precedent, however far back we may cast our eye. One might almost be excused whoshould exclaim, 'Here, surely, is something like a miracle!'Nevertheless, when we give over idle wonder, and begin to examine theseeming prodigy critically, we find it no prodigy at all, much less amiracle. It is not necessary to suppose a moral new birth of humanity, or a wholesale destruction of the wicked and survival of the good, toaccount for the fact before us. It finds its simple and obviousexplanation in the reaction of a changed environment upon human nature. It means merely that a form of society which was founded on the pseudoself-interest of selfishness, and appealed solely to the anti-socialand brutal side of human nature, has been replaced by institutionsbased on the true self-interest of a rational unselfishness, andappealing to the social and generous instincts of men. 

"My friends, if you would see men again the beasts of prey they seemedin the nineteenth century, all you have to do is to restore the oldsocial and industrial system, which taught them to view their naturalprey in their fellow-men, and find their gain in the loss of others. Nodoubt it seems to you that no necessity, however dire, would havetempted you to subsist on what superior skill or strength enabled youto wrest from others equally needy. But suppose it were not merely yourown life that you were responsible for. I know well that there musthave been many a man among our ancestors who, if it had been merely aquestion of his own life, would sooner have given it up than nourishedit by bread snatched from others. But this he was not permitted to do. He had dear lives dependent on him. Men loved women in those days, asnow. God knows how they dared be fathers, but they had babies as sweet, no doubt, to them as ours to us, whom they must feed, clothe, educate. The gentlest creatures are fierce when they have young to provide for, and in that wolfish society the struggle for bread borrowed a peculiardesperation from the tenderest sentiments. For the sake of thosedependent on him, a man might not choose, but must plunge into the foulfight--cheat, overreach, supplant, defraud, buy below worth and sellabove, break down the business by which his neighbor fed his youngones, tempt men to buy what they ought not and to sell what they shouldnot, grind his laborers, sweat his debtors, cozen his creditors. Thougha man sought it carefully with tears, it was hard to find a way inwhich he could earn a living and provide for his family except bypressing in before some weaker rival and taking the food from hismouth. Even the ministers of religion were not exempt from this cruelnecessity. While they warned their flocks against the love of money, regard for their families compelled them to keep an outlook for thepecuniary prizes of their calling. Poor fellows, theirs was indeed atrying business, preaching to men a generosity and unselfishness whichthey and everybody knew would, in the existing state of the world, reduce to poverty those who should practice them, laying down laws ofconduct which the law of self-preservation compelled men to break. Looking on the inhuman spectacle of society, these worthy men bitterlybemoaned the depravity of human nature; as if angelic nature would nothave been debauched in such a devil's school! Ah, my friends, believeme, it is not now in this happy age that humanity is proving thedivinity within it. It was rather in those evil days when not even thefight for life with one another, the struggle for mere existence, inwhich mercy was folly, could wholly banish generosity and kindness fromthe earth. 

"It is not hard to understand the desperation with which men and women, who under other conditions would have been full of gentleness andtruth, fought and tore each other in the scramble for gold, when werealize what it meant to miss it, what poverty was in that day. For thebody it was hunger and thirst, torment by heat and frost, in sicknessneglect, in health unremitting toil; for the moral nature it meantoppression, contempt, and the patient endurance of indignity, brutishassociations from infancy, the loss of all the innocence of childhood, the grace of womanhood, the dignity of manhood; for the mind it meantthe death of ignorance, the torpor of all those faculties whichdistinguish us from brutes, the reduction of life to a round of bodilyfunctions. 

"Ah, my friends, if such a fate as this were offered you and yourchildren as the only alternative of success in the accumulation ofwealth, how long do you fancy would you be in sinking to the morallevel of your ancestors?

"Some two or three centuries ago an act of barbarity was committed inIndia, which, though the number of lives destroyed was but a few score, was attended by such peculiar horrors that its memory is likely to beperpetual. A number of English prisoners were shut up in a roomcontaining not enough air to supply one-tenth their number. Theunfortunates were gallant men, devoted comrades in service, but, as theagonies of suffocation began to take hold on them, they forgot allelse, and became involved in a hideous struggle, each one for himself, and against all others, to force a way to one of the small apertures ofthe prison at which alone it was possible to get a breath of air. Itwas a struggle in which men became beasts, and the recital of itshorrors by the few survivors so shocked our forefathers that for acentury later we find it a stock reference in their literature as atypical illustration of the extreme possibilities of human misery, asshocking in its moral as its physical aspect. They could scarcely haveanticipated that to us the Black Hole of Calcutta, with its press ofmaddened men tearing and trampling one another in the struggle to win aplace at the breathing holes, would seem a striking type of the societyof their age. It lacked something of being a complete type, however, for in the Calcutta Black Hole there were no tender women, no littlechildren and old men and women, no cripples. They were at least allmen, strong to bear, who suffered. 

"When we reflect that the ancient order of which I have been speakingwas prevalent up to the end of the nineteenth century, while to us thenew order which succeeded it already seems antique, even our parentshaving known no other, we cannot fail to be astounded at the suddennesswith which a transition so profound beyond all previous experience ofthe race must have been effected. Some observation of the state ofmen's minds during the last quarter of the nineteenth century will, however, in great measure, dissipate this astonishment. Though generalintelligence in the modern sense could not be said to exist in anycommunity at that time, yet, as compared with previous generations, theone then on the stage was intelligent. The inevitable consequence ofeven this comparative degree of intelligence had been a perception ofthe evils of society, such as had never before been general. It isquite true that these evils had been even worse, much worse, inprevious ages. It was the increased intelligence of the masses whichmade the difference, as the dawn reveals the squalor of surroundingswhich in the darkness may have seemed tolerable. The key-note of theliterature of the period was one of compassion for the poor andunfortunate, and indignant outcry against the failure of the socialmachinery to ameliorate the miseries of men. It is plain from theseoutbursts that the moral hideousness of the spectacle about them was, at least by flashes, fully realized by the best of the men of thattime, and that the lives of some of the more sensitive and generoushearted of them were rendered well nigh unendurable by the intensity oftheir sympathies. 

"Although the idea of the vital unity of the family of mankind, thereality of human brotherhood, was very far from being apprehended bythem as the moral axiom it seems to us, yet it is a mistake to supposethat there was no feeling at all corresponding to it. I could read youpassages of great beauty from some of their writers which show that theconception was clearly attained by a few, and no doubt vaguely by manymore. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the nineteenth centurywas in name Christian, and the fact that the entire commercial andindustrial frame of society was the embodiment of the anti-Christianspirit must have had some weight, though I admit it was strangelylittle, with the nominal followers of Jesus Christ. 

"When we inquire why it did not have more, why, in general, long aftera vast majority of men had agreed as to the crying abuses of theexisting social arrangement, they still tolerated it, or contentedthemselves with talking of petty reforms in it, we come upon anextraordinary fact. It was the sincere belief of even the best of menat that epoch that the only stable elements in human nature, on which asocial system could be safely founded, were its worst propensities. They had been taught and believed that greed and self-seeking were allthat held mankind together, and that all human associations would fallto pieces if anything were done to blunt the edge of these motives orcurb their operation. In a word, they believed--even those who longedto believe otherwise--the exact reverse of what seems to usself-evident; they believed, that is, that the anti-social qualities ofmen, and not their social qualities, were what furnished the cohesiveforce of society. It seemed reasonable to them that men lived togethersolely for the purpose of overreaching and oppressing one another, andof being overreached and oppressed, and that while a society that gavefull scope to these propensities could stand, there would be littlechance for one based on the idea of cooperation for the benefit of all. It seems absurd to expect any one to believe that convictions likethese were ever seriously entertained by men; but that they were notonly entertained by our great-grandfathers, but were responsible forthe long delay in doing away with the ancient order, after a convictionof its intolerable abuses had become general, is as well established asany fact in history can be. Just here you will find the explanation ofthe profound pessimism of the literature of the last quarter of thenineteenth century, the note of melancholy in its poetry, and thecynicism of its humor. 

"Feeling that the condition of the race was unendurable, they had noclear hope of anything better. They believed that the evolution ofhumanity had resulted in leading it into a cul de sac, and that therewas no way of getting forward. The frame of men's minds at this time isstrikingly illustrated by treatises which have come down to us, and mayeven now be consulted in our libraries by the curious, in whichlaborious arguments are pursued to prove that despite the evil plightof men, life was still, by some slight preponderance of considerations, probably better worth living than leaving. Despising themselves, theydespised their Creator. There was a general decay of religious belief. Pale and watery gleams, from skies thickly veiled by doubt and dread, alone lighted up the chaos of earth. That men should doubt Him whosebreath is in their nostrils, or dread the hands that moulded them, seems to us indeed a pitiable insanity; but we must remember thatchildren who are brave by day have sometimes foolish fears at night. The dawn has come since then. It is very easy to believe in thefatherhood of God in the twentieth century. 

"Briefly, as must needs be in a discourse of this character, I haveadverted to some of the causes which had prepared men's minds for thechange from the old to the new order, as well as some causes of theconservatism of despair which for a while held it back after the timewas ripe. To wonder at the rapidity with which the change was completedafter its possibility was first entertained is to forget theintoxicating effect of hope upon minds long accustomed to despair. Thesunburst, after so long and dark a night, must needs have had adazzling effect. From the moment men allowed themselves to believe thathumanity after all had not been meant for a dwarf, that its squatstature was not the measure of its possible growth, but that it stoodupon the verge of an avatar of limitless development, the reaction mustneeds have been overwhelming. It is evident that nothing was able tostand against the enthusiasm which the new faith inspired. 

"Here, at last, men must have felt, was a cause compared with which thegrandest of historic causes had been trivial. It was doubtless becauseit could have commanded millions of martyrs, that none were needed. Thechange of a dynasty in a petty kingdom of the old world often cost morelives than did the revolution which set the feet of the human race atlast in the right way. 

"Doubtless it ill beseems one to whom the boon of life in ourresplendent age has been vouchsafed to wish his destiny other, and yetI have often thought that I would fain exchange my share in this sereneand golden day for a place in that stormy epoch of transition, whenheroes burst the barred gate of the future and revealed to the kindlinggaze of a hopeless race, in place of the blank wall that had closed itspath, a vista of progress whose end, for very excess of light, stilldazzles us. Ah, my friends! who will say that to have lived then, whenthe weakest influence was a lever to whose touch the centuriestrembled, was not worth a share even in this era of fruition?

"You know the story of that last, greatest, and most bloodless ofrevolutions. In the time of one generation men laid aside the socialtraditions and practices of barbarians, and assumed a social orderworthy of rational and human beings. Ceasing to be predatory in theirhabits, they became co-workers, and found in fraternity, at once, thescience of wealth and happiness. 'What shall I eat and drink, andwherewithal shall I be clothed?' stated as a problem beginning andending in self, had been an anxious and an endless one. But when onceit was conceived, not from the individual, but the fraternalstandpoint, 'What shall we eat and drink, and wherewithal shall we beclothed?'--its difficulties vanished. 

"Poverty with servitude had been the result, for the mass of humanity, of attempting to solve the problem of maintenance from the individualstandpoint, but no sooner had the nation become the sole capitalist andemployer than not alone did plenty replace poverty, but the lastvestige of the serfdom of man to man disappeared from earth. Humanslavery, so often vainly scotched, at last was killed. The means ofsubsistence no longer doled out by men to women, by employer toemployed, by rich to poor, was distributed from a common stock as amongchildren at the father's table. It was impossible for a man any longerto use his fellow-men as tools for his own profit. His esteem was theonly sort of gain he could thenceforth make out of him. There was nomore either arrogance or servility in the relations of human beings toone another. For the first time since the creation every man stood upstraight before God. The fear of want and the lust of gain becameextinct motives when abundance was assured to all and immoderatepossessions made impossible of attainment. There were no more beggarsnor almoners. Equity left charity without an occupation. The tencommandments became well nigh obsolete in a world where there was notemptation to theft, no occasion to lie either for fear or favor, noroom for envy where all were equal, and little provocation to violencewhere men were disarmed of power to injure one another. Humanity'sancient dream of liberty, equality, fraternity, mocked by so many ages, at last was realized. 

"As in the old society the generous, the just, the tender-hearted hadbeen placed at a disadvantage by the possession of those qualities; soin the new society the cold-hearted, the greedy, and self-seeking foundthemselves out of joint with the world. Now that the conditions of lifefor the first time ceased to operate as a forcing process to developthe brutal qualities of human nature, and the premium which hadheretofore encouraged selfishness was not only removed, but placed uponunselfishness, it was for the first time possible to see whatunperverted human nature really was like. The depraved tendencies, which had previously overgrown and obscured the better to so large anextent, now withered like cellar fungi in the open air, and the noblerqualities showed a sudden luxuriance which turned cynics intopanegyrists and for the first time in human history tempted mankind tofall in love with itself. Soon was fully revealed, what the divines andphilosophers of the old world never would have believed, that humannature in its essential qualities is good, not bad, that men by theirnatural intention and structure are generous, not selfish, pitiful, notcruel, sympathetic, not arrogant, godlike in aspirations, instinct withdivinest impulses of tenderness and self-sacrifice, images of Godindeed, not the travesties upon Him they had seemed. The constantpressure, through numberless generations, of conditions of life whichmight have perverted angels, had not been able to essentially alter thenatural nobility of the stock, and these conditions once removed, likea bent tree, it had sprung back to its normal uprightness. 

"To put the whole matter in the nutshell of a parable, let me comparehumanity in the olden time to a rosebush planted in a swamp, wateredwith black bog-water, breathing miasmatic fogs by day, and chilled withpoison dews at night. Innumerable generations of gardeners had donetheir best to make it bloom, but beyond an occasional half-opened budwith a worm at the heart, their efforts had been unsuccessful. Many, indeed, claimed that the bush was no rosebush at all, but a noxiousshrub, fit only to be uprooted and burned. The gardeners, for the mostpart, however, held that the bush belonged to the rose family, but hadsome ineradicable taint about it, which prevented the buds from comingout, and accounted for its generally sickly condition. There were afew, indeed, who maintained that the stock was good enough, that thetrouble was in the bog, and that under more favorable conditions theplant might be expected to do better. But these persons were notregular gardeners, and being condemned by the latter as mere theoristsand day dreamers, were, for the most part, so regarded by the people. Moreover, urged some eminent moral philosophers, even conceding for thesake of the argument that the bush might possibly do better elsewhere, it was a more valuable discipline for the buds to try to bloom in a bogthan it would be under more favorable conditions. The buds thatsucceeded in opening might indeed be very rare, and the flowers paleand scentless, but they represented far more moral effort than if theyhad bloomed spontaneously in a garden. 

"The regular gardeners and the moral philosophers had their way. Thebush remained rooted in the bog, and the old course of treatment wenton. Continually new varieties of forcing mixtures were applied to theroots, and more recipes than could be numbered, each declared by itsadvocates the best and only suitable preparation, were used to kill thevermin and remove the mildew. This went on a very long time. Occasionally some one claimed to observe a slight improvement in theappearance of the bush, but there were quite as many who declared thatit did not look so well as it used to. On the whole there could not besaid to be any marked change. Finally, during a period of generaldespondency as to the prospects of the bush where it was, the idea oftransplanting it was again mooted, and this time found favor. 'Let ustry it, ' was the general voice. 'Perhaps it may thrive betterelsewhere, and here it is certainly doubtful if it be worth cultivatinglonger. ' So it came about that the rosebush of humanity wastransplanted, and set in sweet, warm, dry earth, where the sun bathedit, the stars wooed it, and the south wind caressed it. Then itappeared that it was indeed a rosebush. The vermin and the mildewdisappeared, and the bush was covered with most beautiful red roses, whose fragrance filled the world. 

"It is a pledge of the destiny appointed for us that the Creator hasset in our hearts an infinite standard of achievement, judged by whichour past attainments seem always insignificant, and the goal nevernearer. Had our forefathers conceived a state of society in which menshould live together like brethren dwelling in unity, without strifesor envying, violence or overreaching, and where, at the price of adegree of labor not greater than health demands, in their chosenoccupations, they should be wholly freed from care for the morrow andleft with no more concern for their livelihood than trees which arewatered by unfailing streams, --had they conceived such a condition, Isay, it would have seemed to them nothing less than paradise. Theywould have confounded it with their idea of heaven, nor dreamed thatthere could possibly lie further beyond anything to be desired orstriven for. 

"But how is it with us who stand on this height which they gazed up to?Already we have well nigh forgotten, except when it is especiallycalled to our minds by some occasion like the present, that it was notalways with men as it is now. It is a strain on our imaginations toconceive the social arrangements of our immediate ancestors. We findthem grotesque. The solution of the problem of physical maintenance soas to banish care and crime, so far from seeming to us an ultimateattainment, appears but as a preliminary to anything like real humanprogress. We have but relieved ourselves of an impertinent and needlessharassment which hindered our ancestor from undertaking the real endsof existence. We are merely stripped for the race; no more. We are likea child which has just learned to stand upright and to walk. It is agreat event, from the child's point of view, when he first walks. Perhaps he fancies that there can be little beyond that achievement, but a year later he has forgotten that he could not always walk. Hishorizon did but widen when he rose, and enlarge as he moved. A greatevent indeed, in one sense, was his first step, but only as abeginning, not as the end. His true career was but then first enteredon. The enfranchisement of humanity in the last century, from mentaland physical absorption in working and scheming for the mere bodilynecessities, may be regarded as a species of second birth of the race, without which its first birth to an existence that was but a burdenwould forever have remained unjustified, but whereby it is nowabundantly vindicated. Since then, humanity has entered on a new phaseof spiritual development, an evolution of higher faculties, the veryexistence of which in human nature our ancestors scarcely suspected. Inplace of the dreary hopelessness of the nineteenth century, itsprofound pessimism as to the future of humanity, the animating idea ofthe present age is an enthusiastic conception of the opportunities ofour earthly existence, and the unbounded possibilities of human nature. The betterment of mankind from generation to generation, physically, mentally, morally, is recognized as the one great object supremelyworthy of effort and of sacrifice. We believe the race for the firsttime to have entered on the realization of God's ideal of it, and eachgeneration must now be a step upward. 

"Do you ask what we look for when unnumbered generations shall havepassed away? I answer, the way stretches far before us, but the end islost in light. For twofold is the return of man to God 'who is ourhome, ' the return of the individual by the way of death, and the returnof the race by the fulfillment of the evolution, when the divine secrethidden in the germ shall be perfectly unfolded. With a tear for thedark past, turn we then to the dazzling future, and, veiling our eyes, press forward. The long and weary winter of the race is ended. Itssummer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens arebefore it. "

Chapter 27

I never could tell just why, but Sunday afternoon during my old lifehad been a time when I was peculiarly subject to melancholy, when thecolor unaccountably faded out of all the aspects of life, andeverything appeared pathetically uninteresting. The hours, which ingeneral were wont to bear me easily on their wings, lost the power offlight, and toward the close of the day, drooping quite to earth, hadfairly to be dragged along by main strength. Perhaps it was partlyowing to the established association of ideas that, despite the utterchange in my circumstances, I fell into a state of profound depressionon the afternoon of this my first Sunday in the twentieth century. 

It was not, however, on the present occasion a depression withoutspecific cause, the mere vague melancholy I have spoken of, but asentiment suggested and certainly quite justified by my position. Thesermon of Mr. Barton, with its constant implication of the vast moralgap between the century to which I belonged and that in which I foundmyself, had had an effect strongly to accentuate my sense of lonelinessin it. Considerately and philosophically as he had spoken, his wordscould scarcely have failed to leave upon my mind a strong impression ofthe mingled pity, curiosity, and aversion which I, as a representativeof an abhorred epoch, must excite in all around me. 

The extraordinary kindness with which I had been treated by Dr. Leeteand his family, and especially the goodness of Edith, had hithertoprevented my fully realizing that their real sentiment toward me mustnecessarily be that of the whole generation to which they belonged. Therecognition of this, as regarded Dr. Leete and his amiable wife, however painful, I might have endured, but the conviction that Edithmust share their feeling was more than I could bear. 

The crushing effect with which this belated perception of a fact soobvious came to me opened my eyes fully to something which perhaps thereader has already suspected, --I loved Edith. 

Was it strange that I did? The affecting occasion on which our intimacyhad begun, when her hands had drawn me out of the whirlpool of madness;the fact that her sympathy was the vital breath which had set me up inthis new life and enabled me to support it; my habit of looking to heras the mediator between me and the world around in a sense that evenher father was not, --these were circumstances that had predetermined aresult which her remarkable loveliness of person and disposition wouldalone have accounted for. It was quite inevitable that she should havecome to seem to me, in a sense quite different from the usualexperience of lovers, the only woman in this world. Now that I hadbecome suddenly sensible of the fatuity of the hopes I had begun tocherish, I suffered not merely what another lover might, but inaddition a desolate loneliness, an utter forlornness, such as no otherlover, however unhappy, could have felt. 

My hosts evidently saw that I was depressed in spirits, and did theirbest to divert me. Edith especially, I could see, was distressed forme, but according to the usual perversity of lovers, having once beenso mad as to dream of receiving something more from her, there was nolonger any virtue for me in a kindness that I knew was only sympathy. 

Toward nightfall, after secluding myself in my room most of theafternoon, I went into the garden to walk about. The day was overcast, with an autumnal flavor in the warm, still air. Finding myself near theexcavation, I entered the subterranean chamber and sat down there. "This, " I muttered to myself, "is the only home I have. Let me stayhere, and not go forth any more. " Seeking aid from the familiarsurroundings, I endeavored to find a sad sort of consolation inreviving the past and summoning up the forms and faces that were aboutme in my former life. It was in vain. There was no longer any life inthem. For nearly one hundred years the stars had been looking down onEdith Bartlett's grave, and the graves of all my generation. 

The past was dead, crushed beneath a century's weight, and from thepresent I was shut out. There was no place for me anywhere. I wasneither dead nor properly alive. 

"Forgive me for following you. "

I looked up. Edith stood in the door of the subterranean room, regarding me smilingly, but with eyes full of sympathetic distress. 

"Send me away if I am intruding on you, " she said; "but we saw that youwere out of spirits, and you know you promised to let me know if thatwere so. You have not kept your word. "

I rose and came to the door, trying to smile, but making, I fancy, rather sorry work of it, for the sight of her loveliness brought hometo me the more poignantly the cause of my wretchedness. 

"I was feeling a little lonely, that is all, " I said. "Has it neveroccurred to you that my position is so much more utterly alone than anyhuman being's ever was before that a new word is really needed todescribe it?"

"Oh, you must not talk that way--you must not let yourself feel thatway--you must not!" she exclaimed, with moistened eyes. "Are we notyour friends? It is your own fault if you will not let us be. You neednot be lonely. "

"You are good to me beyond my power of understanding, " I said, "butdon't you suppose that I know it is pity merely, sweet pity, but pityonly. I should be a fool not to know that I cannot seem to you as othermen of your own generation do, but as some strange uncanny being, astranded creature of an unknown sea, whose forlornness touches yourcompassion despite its grotesqueness. I have been so foolish, you wereso kind, as to almost forget that this must needs be so, and to fancy Imight in time become naturalized, as we used to say, in this age, so asto feel like one of you and to seem to you like the other men aboutyou. But Mr. Barton's sermon taught me how vain such a fancy is, howgreat the gulf between us must seem to you. "

"Oh that miserable sermon!" she exclaimed, fairly crying now in hersympathy, "I wanted you not to hear it. What does he know of you? Hehas read in old musty books about your times, that is all. What do youcare about him, to let yourself be vexed by anything he said? Isn't itanything to you, that we who know you feel differently? Don't you caremore about what we think of you than what he does who never saw you?Oh, Mr. West! you don't know, you can't think, how it makes me feel tosee you so forlorn. I can't have it so. What can I say to you? How canI convince you how different our feeling for you is from what youthink?"

As before, in that other crisis of my fate when she had come to me, sheextended her hands toward me in a gesture of helpfulness, and, as then, I caught and held them in my own; her bosom heaved with strong emotion, and little tremors in the fingers which I clasped emphasized the depthof her feeling. In her face, pity contended in a sort of divine spiteagainst the obstacles which reduced it to impotence. Womanly compassionsurely never wore a guise more lovely. 

Such beauty and such goodness quite melted me, and it seemed that theonly fitting response I could make was to tell her just the truth. Ofcourse I had not a spark of hope, but on the other hand I had no fearthat she would be angry. She was too pitiful for that. So I saidpresently, "It is very ungrateful in me not to be satisfied with suchkindness as you have shown me, and are showing me now. But are you soblind as not to see why they are not enough to make me happy? Don't yousee that it is because I have been mad enough to love you?"

At my last words she blushed deeply and her eyes fell before mine, butshe made no effort to withdraw her hands from my clasp. For somemoments she stood so, panting a little. Then blushing deeper than ever, but with a dazzling smile, she looked up. 

"Are you sure it is not you who are blind?" she said. 

That was all, but it was enough, for it told me that, unaccountable, incredible as it was, this radiant daughter of a golden age hadbestowed upon me not alone her pity, but her love. Still, I halfbelieved I must be under some blissful hallucination even as I claspedher in my arms. "If I am beside myself, " I cried, "let me remain so. "

"It is I whom you must think beside myself, " she panted, escaping frommy arms when I had barely tasted the sweetness of her lips. "Oh! oh!what must you think of me almost to throw myself in the arms of one Ihave known but a week? I did not mean that you should find it out sosoon, but I was so sorry for you I forgot what I was saying. No, no;you must not touch me again till you know who I am. After that, sir, you shall apologize to me very humbly for thinking, as I know you do, that I have been over quick to fall in love with you. After you knowwho I am, you will be bound to confess that it was nothing less than myduty to fall in love with you at first sight, and that no girl ofproper feeling in my place could do otherwise. "

As may be supposed, I would have been quite content to waiveexplanations, but Edith was resolute that there should be no morekisses until she had been vindicated from all suspicion of precipitancyin the bestowal of her affections, and I was fain to follow the lovelyenigma into the house. Having come where her mother was, she blushinglywhispered something in her ear and ran away, leaving us together. 

It then appeared that, strange as my experience had been, I was nowfirst to know what was perhaps its strangest feature. From Mrs. Leete Ilearned that Edith was the great-granddaughter of no other than my lostlove, Edith Bartlett. After mourning me for fourteen years, she hadmade a marriage of esteem, and left a son who had been Mrs. Leete'sfather. Mrs. Leete had never seen her grandmother, but had heard muchof her, and, when her daughter was born, gave her the name of Edith. This fact might have tended to increase the interest which the girltook, as she grew up, in all that concerned her ancestress, andespecially the tragic story of the supposed death of the lover, whosewife she expected to be, in the conflagration of his house. It was atale well calculated to touch the sympathy of a romantic girl, and thefact that the blood of the unfortunate heroine was in her own veinsnaturally heightened Edith's interest in it. A portrait of EdithBartlett and some of her papers, including a packet of my own letters, were among the family heirlooms. The picture represented a verybeautiful young woman about whom it was easy to imagine all manner oftender and romantic things. My letters gave Edith some material forforming a distinct idea of my personality, and both together sufficedto make the sad old story very real to her. She used to tell herparents, half jestingly, that she would never marry till she found alover like Julian West, and there were none such nowadays. 

Now all this, of course, was merely the daydreaming of a girl whosemind had never been taken up by a love affair of her own, and wouldhave had no serious consequence but for the discovery that morning ofthe buried vault in her father's garden and the revelation of theidentity of its inmate. For when the apparently lifeless form had beenborne into the house, the face in the locket found upon the breast wasinstantly recognized as that of Edith Bartlett, and by that fact, takenin connection with the other circumstances, they knew that I was noother than Julian West. Even had there been no thought, as at firstthere was not, of my resuscitation, Mrs. Leete said she believed thatthis event would have affected her daughter in a critical and life-longmanner. The presumption of some subtle ordering of destiny, involvingher fate with mine, would under all circumstances have possessed anirresistible fascination for almost any woman. 

Whether when I came back to life a few hours afterward, and from thefirst seemed to turn to her with a peculiar dependence and to find aspecial solace in her company, she had been too quick in giving herlove at the first sign of mine, I could now, her mother said, judge formyself. If I thought so, I must remember that this, after all, was thetwentieth and not the nineteenth century, and love was, no doubt, nowquicker in growth, as well as franker in utterance than then. 

From Mrs. Leete I went to Edith. When I found her, it was first of allto take her by both hands and stand a long time in rapt contemplationof her face. As I gazed, the memory of that other Edith, which had beenaffected as with a benumbing shock by the tremendous experience thathad parted us, revived, and my heart was dissolved with tender andpitiful emotions, but also very blissful ones. For she who brought tome so poignantly the sense of my loss was to make that loss good. Itwas as if from her eyes Edith Bartlett looked into mine, and smiledconsolation to me. My fate was not alone the strangest, but the mostfortunate that ever befell a man. A double miracle had been wrought forme. I had not been stranded upon the shore of this strange world tofind myself alone and companionless. My love, whom I had dreamed lost, had been reembodied for my consolation. When at last, in an ecstasy ofgratitude and tenderness, I folded the lovely girl in my arms, the twoEdiths were blended in my thought, nor have they ever since beenclearly distinguished. I was not long in finding that on Edith's partthere was a corresponding confusion of identities. Never, surely, wasthere between freshly united lovers a stranger talk than ours thatafternoon. She seemed more anxious to have me speak of Edith Bartlettthan of herself, of how I had loved her than how I loved herself, rewarding my fond words concerning another woman with tears and tendersmiles and pressures of the hand. 

"You must not love me too much for myself, " she said. "I shall be veryjealous for her. I shall not let you forget her. I am going to tell yousomething which you may think strange. Do you not believe that spiritssometimes come back to the world to fulfill some work that lay neartheir hearts? What if I were to tell you that I have sometimes thoughtthat her spirit lives in me--that Edith Bartlett, not Edith Leete, ismy real name. I cannot know it; of course none of us can know who wereally are; but I can feel it. Can you wonder that I have such afeeling, seeing how my life was affected by her and by you, even beforeyou came. So you see you need not trouble to love me at all, if onlyyou are true to her. I shall not be likely to be jealous. "

Dr. Leete had gone out that afternoon, and I did not have an interviewwith him till later. He was not, apparently, wholly unprepared for theintelligence I conveyed, and shook my hand heartily. 

"Under any ordinary circumstances, Mr. West, I should say that thisstep had been taken on rather short acquaintance; but these aredecidedly not ordinary circumstances. In fairness, perhaps I ought totell you, " he added smilingly, "that while I cheerfully consent to theproposed arrangement, you must not feel too much indebted to me, as Ijudge my consent is a mere formality. From the moment the secret of thelocket was out, it had to be, I fancy. Why, bless me, if Edith had notbeen there to redeem her great-grandmother's pledge, I really apprehendthat Mrs. Leete's loyalty to me would have suffered a severe strain. "

That evening the garden was bathed in moonlight, and till midnightEdith and I wandered to and fro there, trying to grow accustomed to ourhappiness. 

"What should I have done if you had not cared for me?" she exclaimed. "I was afraid you were not going to. What should I have done then, whenI felt I was consecrated to you! As soon as you came back to life, Iwas as sure as if she had told me that I was to be to you what shecould not be, but that could only be if you would let me. Oh, how Iwanted to tell you that morning, when you felt so terribly strangeamong us, who I was, but dared not open my lips about that, or letfather or mother----"

"That must have been what you would not let your father tell me!" Iexclaimed, referring to the conversation I had overheard as I came outof my trance. 

"Of course it was, " Edith laughed. "Did you only just guess that?Father being only a man, thought that it would make you feel amongfriends to tell you who we were. He did not think of me at all. Butmother knew what I meant, and so I had my way. I could never havelooked you in the face if you had known who I was. It would have beenforcing myself on you quite too boldly. I am afraid you think I didthat to-day, as it was. I am sure I did not mean to, for I know girlswere expected to hide their feelings in your day, and I was dreadfullyafraid of shocking you. Ah me, how hard it must have been for them tohave always had to conceal their love like a fault. Why did they thinkit such a shame to love any one till they had been given permission? Itis so odd to think of waiting for permission to fall in love. Was itbecause men in those days were angry when girls loved them? That is notthe way women would feel, I am sure, or men either, I think, now. Idon't understand it at all. That will be one of the curious thingsabout the women of those days that you will have to explain to me. Idon't believe Edith Bartlett was so foolish as the others. "

After sundry ineffectual attempts at parting, she finally insisted thatwe must say good night. I was about to imprint upon her lips thepositively last kiss, when she said, with an indescribable archness:

"One thing troubles me. Are you sure that you quite forgive EdithBartlett for marrying any one else? The books that have come down to usmake out lovers of your time more jealous than fond, and that is whatmakes me ask. It would be a great relief to me if I could feel surethat you were not in the least jealous of my great-grandfather formarrying your sweetheart. May I tell my great-grandmother's picturewhen I go to my room that you quite forgive her for proving false toyou?"

Will the reader believe it, this coquettish quip, whether the speakerherself had any idea of it or not, actually touched and with thetouching cured a preposterous ache of something like jealousy which Ihad been vaguely conscious of ever since Mrs. Leete had told me ofEdith Bartlett's marriage. Even while I had been holding EdithBartlett's great-granddaughter in my arms, I had not, till this moment, so illogical are some of our feelings, distinctly realized that but forthat marriage I could not have done so. The absurdity of this frame ofmind could only be equalled by the abruptness with which it dissolvedas Edith's roguish query cleared the fog from my perceptions. I laughedas I kissed her. 

"You may assure her of my entire forgiveness, " I said, "although if ithad been any man but your great-grandfather whom she married, it wouldhave been a very different matter. "

On reaching my chamber that night I did not open the musical telephonethat I might be lulled to sleep with soothing tunes, as had become myhabit. For once my thoughts made better music than even twentiethcentury orchestras discourse, and it held me enchanted till well towardmorning, when I fell asleep. 

Chapter 28

"It's a little after the time you told me to wake you, sir. You did notcome out of it as quick as common, sir. "

The voice was the voice of my man Sawyer. I started bolt upright in bedand stared around. I was in my underground chamber. The mellow light ofthe lamp which always burned in the room when I occupied it illuminedthe familiar walls and furnishings. By my bedside, with the glass ofsherry in his hand which Dr. Pillsbury prescribed on first rousing froma mesmeric sleep, by way of awakening the torpid physical functions, stood Sawyer. 

"Better take this right off, sir, " he said, as I stared blankly at him. "You look kind of flushed like, sir, and you need it. "

I tossed off the liquor and began to realize what had happened to me. It was, of course, very plain. All that about the twentieth century hadbeen a dream. I had but dreamed of that enlightened and care-free raceof men and their ingeniously simple institutions, of the glorious newBoston with its domes and pinnacles, its gardens and fountains, and itsuniversal reign of comfort. The amiable family which I had learned toknow so well, my genial host and Mentor, Dr. Leete, his wife, and theirdaughter, the second and more beauteous Edith, my betrothed--these, too, had been but figments of a vision. 

For a considerable time I remained in the attitude in which thisconviction had come over me, sitting up in bed gazing at vacancy, absorbed in recalling the scenes and incidents of my fantasticexperience. Sawyer, alarmed at my looks, was meanwhile anxiouslyinquiring what was the matter with me. Roused at length by hisimportunities to a recognition of my surroundings, I pulled myselftogether with an effort and assured the faithful fellow that I was allright. "I have had an extraordinary dream, that's all, Sawyer, " I said, "a most-ex-traor-dinary dream. "

I dressed in a mechanical way, feeling light-headed and oddly uncertainof myself, and sat down to the coffee and rolls which Sawyer was in thehabit of providing for my refreshment before I left the house. Themorning newspaper lay by the plate. I took it up, and my eye fell onthe date, May 31, 1887. I had known, of course, from the moment Iopened my eyes that my long and detailed experience in another centuryhad been a dream, and yet it was startling to have it so conclusivelydemonstrated that the world was but a few hours older than when I hadlain down to sleep. 

Glancing at the table of contents at the head of the paper, whichreviewed the news of the morning, I read the following summary:

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. --The impending war between France and Germany. TheFrench Chambers asked for new military credits to meet Germany'sincrease of her army. Probability that all Europe will be involved incase of war. --Great suffering among the unemployed in London. Theydemand work. Monster demonstration to be made. The authoritiesuneasy. --Great strikes in Belgium. The government preparing to repressoutbreaks. Shocking facts in regard to the employment of girls inBelgium coal mines. --Wholesale evictions in Ireland. 

"HOME AFFAIRS. --The epidemic of fraud unchecked. Embezzlement of half amillion in New York. --Misappropriation of a trust fund by executors. Orphans left penniless. --Clever system of thefts by a bank teller;$50, 000 gone. --The coal barons decide to advance the price of coal andreduce production. --Speculators engineering a great wheat corner atChicago. --A clique forcing up the price of coffee. --Enormous land-grabsof Western syndicates. --Revelations of shocking corruption amongChicago officials. Systematic bribery. --The trials of the Boodlealdermen to go on at New York. --Large failures of business houses. Fears of a business crisis. --A large grist of burglaries andlarcenies. --A woman murdered in cold blood for her money at NewHaven. --A householder shot by a burglar in this city last night. --A manshoots himself in Worcester because he could not get work. A largefamily left destitute. --An aged couple in New Jersey commit suiciderather than go to the poor-house. --Pitiable destitution among the womenwage-workers in the great cities. --Startling growth of illiteracy inMassachusetts. --More insane asylums wanted. --Decoration Day addresses. Professor Brown's oration on the moral grandeur of nineteenth centurycivilization. "

It was indeed the nineteenth century to which I had awaked; there couldbe no kind of doubt about that. Its complete microcosm this summary ofthe day's news had presented, even to that last unmistakable touch offatuous self-complacency. Coming after such a damning indictment of theage as that one day's chronicle of world-wide bloodshed, greed, andtyranny, was a bit of cynicism worthy of Mephistopheles, and yet of allwhose eyes it had met this morning I was, perhaps, the only one whoperceived the cynicism, and but yesterday I should have perceived it nomore than the others. That strange dream it was which had made all thedifference. For I know not how long, I forgot my surroundings afterthis, and was again in fancy moving in that vivid dream-world, in thatglorious city, with its homes of simple comfort and its gorgeous publicpalaces. Around me were again faces unmarred by arrogance or servility, by envy or greed, by anxious care or feverish ambition, and statelyforms of men and women who had never known fear of a fellow man ordepended on his favor, but always, in the words of that sermon whichstill rang in my ears, had "stood up straight before God. "

With a profound sigh and a sense of irreparable loss, not the lesspoignant that it was a loss of what had never really been, I roused atlast from my reverie, and soon after left the house. 

A dozen times between my door and Washington Street I had to stop andpull myself together, such power had been in that vision of the Bostonof the future to make the real Boston strange. The squalor andmalodorousness of the town struck me, from the moment I stood upon thestreet, as facts I had never before observed. But yesterday, moreover, it had seemed quite a matter of course that some of my fellow-citizensshould wear silks, and others rags, that some should look well fed, andothers hungry. Now on the contrary the glaring disparities in the dressand condition of the men and women who brushed each other on thesidewalks shocked me at every step, and yet more the entireindifference which the prosperous showed to the plight of theunfortunate. Were these human beings, who could behold the wretchednessof their fellows without so much as a change of countenance? And yet, all the while, I knew well that it was I who had changed, and not mycontemporaries. I had dreamed of a city whose people fared all alike aschildren of one family and were one another's keepers in all things. 

Another feature of the real Boston, which assumed the extraordinaryeffect of strangeness that marks familiar things seen in a new light, was the prevalence of advertising. There had been no personaladvertising in the Boston of the twentieth century, because there wasno need of any, but here the walls of the buildings, the windows, thebroadsides of the newspapers in every hand, the very pavements, everything in fact in sight, save the sky, were covered with theappeals of individuals who sought, under innumerable pretexts, toattract the contributions of others to their support. However thewording might vary, the tenor of all these appeals was the same:

"Help John Jones. Never mind the rest. They are frauds. I, John Jones, am the right one. Buy of me. Employ me. Visit me. Hear me, John Jones. Look at me. Make no mistake, John Jones is the man and nobody else. Letthe rest starve, but for God's sake remember John Jones!"

Whether the pathos or the moral repulsiveness of the spectacle mostimpressed me, so suddenly become a stranger in my own city, I know not. Wretched men, I was moved to cry, who, because they will not learn tobe helpers of one another, are doomed to be beggars of one another fromthe least to the greatest! This horrible babel of shamelessself-assertion and mutual depreciation, this stunning clamor ofconflicting boasts, appeals, and adjurations, this stupendous system ofbrazen beggary, what was it all but the necessity of a society in whichthe opportunity to serve the world according to his gifts, instead ofbeing secured to every man as the first object of social organization, had to be fought for!

I reached Washington Street at the busiest point, and there I stood andlaughed aloud, to the scandal of the passers-by. For my life I couldnot have helped it, with such a mad humor was I moved at sight of theinterminable rows of stores on either side, up and down the street sofar as I could see--scores of them, to make the spectacle more utterlypreposterous, within a stone's throw devoted to selling the same sortof goods. Stores! stores! stores! miles of stores! ten thousand storesto distribute the goods needed by this one city, which in my dream hadbeen supplied with all things from a single warehouse, as they wereordered through one great store in every quarter, where the buyer, without waste of time or labor, found under one roof the world'sassortment in whatever line he desired. There the labor of distributionhad been so slight as to add but a scarcely perceptible fraction to thecost of commodities to the user. The cost of production was virtuallyall he paid. But here the mere distribution of the goods, theirhandling alone, added a fourth, a third, a half and more, to the cost. All these ten thousand plants must be paid for, their rent, theirstaffs of superintendence, their platoons of salesmen, their tenthousand sets of accountants, jobbers, and business dependents, withall they spent in advertising themselves and fighting one another, andthe consumers must do the paying. What a famous process for beggaring anation!

Were these serious men I saw about me, or children, who did theirbusiness on such a plan? Could they be reasoning beings, who did notsee the folly which, when the product is made and ready for use, wastesso much of it in getting it to the user? If people eat with a spoonthat leaks half its contents between bowl and lip, are they not likelyto go hungry?

I had passed through Washington Street thousands of times before andviewed the ways of those who sold merchandise, but my curiosityconcerning them was as if I had never gone by their way before. I tookwondering note of the show windows of the stores, filled with goodsarranged with a wealth of pains and artistic device to attract the eye. I saw the throngs of ladies looking in, and the proprietors eagerlywatching the effect of the bait. I went within and noted the hawk-eyedfloor-walker watching for business, overlooking the clerks, keepingthem up to their task of inducing the customers to buy, buy, buy, formoney if they had it, for credit if they had it not, to buy what theywanted not, more than they wanted, what they could not afford. At timesI momentarily lost the clue and was confused by the sight. Why thiseffort to induce people to buy? Surely that had nothing to do with thelegitimate business of distributing products to those who needed them. Surely it was the sheerest waste to force upon people what they did notwant, but what might be useful to another. The nation was so much thepoorer for every such achievement. What were these clerks thinking of?Then I would remember that they were not acting as distributors likethose in the store I had visited in the dream Boston. They were notserving the public interest, but their immediate personal interest, andit was nothing to them what the ultimate effect of their course on thegeneral prosperity might be, if but they increased their own hoard, forthese goods were their own, and the more they sold and the more theygot for them, the greater their gain. The more wasteful the peoplewere, the more articles they did not want which they could be inducedto buy, the better for these sellers. To encourage prodigality was theexpress aim of the ten thousand stores of Boston. 

Nor were these storekeepers and clerks a whit worse men than any othersin Boston. They must earn a living and support their families, and howwere they to find a trade to do it by which did not necessitate placingtheir individual interests before those of others and that of all? Theycould not be asked to starve while they waited for an order of thingssuch as I had seen in my dream, in which the interest of each and thatof all were identical. But, God in heaven! what wonder, under such asystem as this about me--what wonder that the city was so shabby, andthe people so meanly dressed, and so many of them ragged and hungry!

Some time after this it was that I drifted over into South Boston andfound myself among the manufacturing establishments. I had been in thisquarter of the city a hundred times before, just as I had been onWashington Street, but here, as well as there, I now first perceivedthe true significance of what I witnessed. Formerly I had taken pridein the fact that, by actual count, Boston had some four thousandindependent manufacturing establishments; but in this very multiplicityand independence I recognized now the secret of the insignificant totalproduct of their industry. 

If Washington Street had been like a lane in Bedlam, this was aspectacle as much more melancholy as production is a more vitalfunction than distribution. For not only were these four thousandestablishments not working in concert, and for that reason aloneoperating at prodigious disadvantage, but, as if this did not involve asufficiently disastrous loss of power, they were using their utmostskill to frustrate one another's effort, praying by night and workingby day for the destruction of one another's enterprises. 

The roar and rattle of wheels and hammers resounding from every sidewas not the hum of a peaceful industry, but the clangor of swordswielded by foemen. These mills and shops were so many forts, each underits own flag, its guns trained on the mills and shops about it, and itssappers busy below, undermining them. 

Within each one of these forts the strictest organization of industrywas insisted on; the separate gangs worked under a single centralauthority. No interference and no duplicating of work were permitted. Each had his allotted task, and none were idle. By what hiatus in thelogical faculty, by what lost link of reasoning, account, then, for thefailure to recognize the necessity of applying the same principle tothe organization of the national industries as a whole, to see that iflack of organization could impair the efficiency of a shop, it musthave effects as much more disastrous in disabling the industries of thenation at large as the latter are vaster in volume and more complex inthe relationship of their parts. 

People would be prompt enough to ridicule an army in which there wereneither companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, or armycorps--no unit of organization, in fact, larger than the corporal'ssquad, with no officer higher than a corporal, and all the corporalsequal in authority. And yet just such an army were the manufacturingindustries of nineteenth century Boston, an army of four thousandindependent squads led by four thousand independent corporals, eachwith a separate plan of campaign. 

Knots of idle men were to be seen here and there on every side, someidle because they could find no work at any price, others because theycould not get what they thought a fair price. I accosted some of thelatter, and they told me their grievances. It was very little comfort Icould give them. "I am sorry for you, " I said. "You get little enough, certainly, and yet the wonder to me is, not that industries conductedas these are do not pay you living wages, but that they are able to payyou any wages at all. "

Making my way back again after this to the peninsular city, towardthree o'clock I stood on State Street, staring, as if I had never seenthem before, at the banks and brokers' offices, and other financialinstitutions, of which there had been in the State Street of my visionno vestige. Business men, confidential clerks, and errand boys werethronging in and out of the banks, for it wanted but a few minutes ofthe closing hour. Opposite me was the bank where I did business, andpresently I crossed the street, and, going in with the crowd, stood ina recess of the wall looking on at the army of clerks handling money, and the cues of depositors at the tellers' windows. An old gentlemanwhom I knew, a director of the bank, passing me and observing mycontemplative attitude, stopped a moment. 

"Interesting sight, isn't it, Mr. West, " he said. "Wonderful piece ofmechanism; I find it so myself. I like sometimes to stand and look onat it just as you are doing. It's a poem, sir, a poem, that's what Icall it. Did you ever think, Mr. West, that the bank is the heart ofthe business system? From it and to it, in endless flux and reflux, thelife blood goes. It is flowing in now. It will flow out again in themorning"; and pleased with his little conceit, the old man passed onsmiling. 

Yesterday I should have considered the simile apt enough, but sincethen I had visited a world incomparably more affluent than this, inwhich money was unknown and without conceivable use. I had learned thatit had a use in the world around me only because the work of producingthe nation's livelihood, instead of being regarded as the most strictlypublic and common of all concerns, and as such conducted by the nation, was abandoned to the hap-hazard efforts of individuals. This originalmistake necessitated endless exchanges to bring about any sort ofgeneral distribution of products. These exchanges money effected--howequitably, might be seen in a walk from the tenement house districts tothe Back Bay--at the cost of an army of men taken from productive laborto manage it, with constant ruinous breakdowns of its machinery, and agenerally debauching influence on mankind which had justified itsdescription, from ancient time, as the "root of all evil. "

Alas for the poor old bank director with his poem! He had mistaken thethrobbing of an abscess for the beating of the heart. What he called "awonderful piece of mechanism" was an imperfect device to remedy anunnecessary defect, the clumsy crutch of a self-made cripple. 

After the banks had closed I wandered aimlessly about the businessquarter for an hour or two, and later sat a while on one of the benchesof the Common, finding an interest merely in watching the throngs thatpassed, such as one has in studying the populace of a foreign city, sostrange since yesterday had my fellow citizens and their ways become tome. For thirty years I had lived among them, and yet I seemed to havenever noted before how drawn and anxious were their faces, of the richas of the poor, the refined, acute faces of the educated as well as thedull masks of the ignorant. And well it might be so, for I saw now, asnever before I had seen so plainly, that each as he walked constantlyturned to catch the whispers of a spectre at his ear, the spectre ofUncertainty. "Do your work never so well, " the spectre waswhispering--"rise early and toil till late, rob cunningly or servefaithfully, you shall never know security. Rich you may be now andstill come to poverty at last. Leave never so much wealth to yourchildren, you cannot buy the assurance that your son may not be theservant of your servant, or that your daughter will not have to sellherself for bread. "

A man passing by thrust an advertising card in my hand, which set forththe merits of some new scheme of life insurance. The incident remindedme of the only device, pathetic in its admission of the universal needit so poorly supplied, which offered these tired and hunted men andwomen even a partial protection from uncertainty. By this means, thosealready well-to-do, I remembered, might purchase a precariousconfidence that after their death their loved ones would not, for awhile at least, be trampled under the feet of men. But this was all, and this was only for those who could pay well for it. What idea waspossible to these wretched dwellers in the land of Ishmael, where everyman's hand was against each and the hand of each against every other, of true life insurance as I had seen it among the people of that dreamland, each of whom, by virtue merely of his membership in the nationalfamily, was guaranteed against need of any sort, by a policyunderwritten by one hundred million fellow countrymen. 

Some time after this it was that I recall a glimpse of myself standingon the steps of a building on Tremont Street, looking at a militaryparade. A regiment was passing. It was the first sight in that drearyday which had inspired me with any other emotions than wondering pityand amazement. Here at last were order and reason, an exhibition ofwhat intelligent cooperation can accomplish. The people who stoodlooking on with kindling faces, --could it be that the sight had forthem no more than but a spectacular interest? Could they fail to seethat it was their perfect concert of action, their organization underone control, which made these men the tremendous engine they were, ableto vanquish a mob ten times as numerous? Seeing this so plainly, couldthey fail to compare the scientific manner in which the nation went towar with the unscientific manner in which it went to work? Would theynot query since what time the killing of men had been a task so muchmore important than feeding and clothing them, that a trained armyshould be deemed alone adequate to the former, while the latter wasleft to a mob?

It was now toward nightfall, and the streets were thronged with theworkers from the stores, the shops, and mills. Carried along with thestronger part of the current, I found myself, as it began to grow dark, in the midst of a scene of squalor and human degradation such as onlythe South Cove tenement district could present. I had seen the madwasting of human labor; here I saw in direst shape the want that wastehad bred. 

From the black doorways and windows of the rookeries on every side camegusts of fetid air. The streets and alleys reeked with the effluvia ofa slave ship's between-decks. As I passed I had glimpses within of palebabies gasping out their lives amid sultry stenches, of hopeless-facedwomen deformed by hardship, retaining of womanhood no trait saveweakness, while from the windows leered girls with brows of brass. Likethe starving bands of mongrel curs that infest the streets of Moslemtowns, swarms of half-clad brutalized children filled the air withshrieks and curses as they fought and tumbled among the garbage thatlittered the court-yards. 

There was nothing in all this that was new to me. Often had I passedthrough this part of the city and witnessed its sights with feelings ofdisgust mingled with a certain philosophical wonder at the extremitiesmortals will endure and still cling to life. But not alone as regardedthe economical follies of this age, but equally as touched its moralabominations, scales had fallen from my eyes since that vision ofanother century. No more did I look upon the woful dwellers in thisInferno with a callous curiosity as creatures scarcely human. I saw inthem my brothers and sisters, my parents, my children, flesh of myflesh, blood of my blood. The festering mass of human wretchednessabout me offended not now my senses merely, but pierced my heart like aknife, so that I could not repress sighs and groans. I not only saw butfelt in my body all that I saw. 

Presently, too, as I observed the wretched beings about me moreclosely, I perceived that they were all quite dead. Their bodies wereso many living sepulchres. On each brutal brow was plainly written thehic jacet of a soul dead within. 

As I looked, horror struck, from one death's head to another, I wasaffected by a singular hallucination. Like a wavering translucentspirit face superimposed upon each of these brutish masks I saw theideal, the possible face that would have been the actual if mind andsoul had lived. It was not till I was aware of these ghostly faces, andof the reproach that could not be gainsaid which was in their eyes, that the full piteousness of the ruin that had been wrought wasrevealed to me. I was moved with contrition as with a strong agony, forI had been one of those who had endured that these things should be. Ihad been one of those who, well knowing that they were, had not desiredto hear or be compelled to think much of them, but had gone on as ifthey were not, seeking my own pleasure and profit. Therefore now Ifound upon my garments the blood of this great multitude of strangledsouls of my brothers. The voice of their blood cried out against mefrom the ground. Every stone of the reeking pavements, every brick ofthe pestilential rookeries, found a tongue and called after me as Ifled: What hast thou done with thy brother Abel?

I have no clear recollection of anything after this till I found myselfstanding on the carved stone steps of the magnificent home of mybetrothed in Commonwealth Avenue. Amid the tumult of my thoughts thatday, I had scarcely once thought of her, but now obeying someunconscious impulse my feet had found the familiar way to her door. Iwas told that the family were at dinner, but word was sent out that Ishould join them at table. Besides the family, I found several guestspresent, all known to me. The table glittered with plate and costlychina. The ladies were sumptuously dressed and wore the jewels ofqueens. The scene was one of costly elegance and lavish luxury. Thecompany was in excellent spirits, and there was plentiful laughter anda running fire of jests. 

To me it was as if, in wandering through the place of doom, my bloodturned to tears by its sights, and my spirit attuned to sorrow, pity, and despair, I had happened in some glade upon a merry party ofroisterers. I sat in silence until Edith began to rally me upon mysombre looks, What ailed me? The others presently joined in the playfulassault, and I became a target for quips and jests. Where had I been, and what had I seen to make such a dull fellow of me?

"I have been in Golgotha, " at last I answered. "I have seen Humanityhanging on a cross! Do none of you know what sights the sun and starslook down on in this city, that you can think and talk of anythingelse? Do you not know that close to your doors a great multitude of menand women, flesh of your flesh, live lives that are one agony frombirth to death? Listen! their dwellings are so near that if you hushyour laughter you will hear their grievous voices, the piteous cryingof the little ones that suckle poverty, the hoarse curses of men soddenin misery turned half-way back to brutes, the chaffering of an army ofwomen selling themselves for bread. With what have you stopped yourears that you do not hear these doleful sounds? For me, I can hearnothing else. "

Silence followed my words. A passion of pity had shaken me as I spoke, but when I looked around upon the company, I saw that, far from beingstirred as I was, their faces expressed a cold and hard astonishment, mingled in Edith's with extreme mortification, in her father's withanger. The ladies were exchanging scandalized looks, while one of thegentlemen had put up his eyeglass and was studying me with an air ofscientific curiosity. When I saw that things which were to me sointolerable moved them not at all, that words that melted my heart tospeak had only offended them with the speaker, I was at first stunnedand then overcome with a desperate sickness and faintness at the heart. What hope was there for the wretched, for the world, if thoughtful menand tender women were not moved by things like these! Then I bethoughtmyself that it must be because I had not spoken aright. No doubt I hadput the case badly. They were angry because they thought I was beratingthem, when God knew I was merely thinking of the horror of the factwithout any attempt to assign the responsibility for it. 

I restrained my passion, and tried to speak calmly and logically that Imight correct this impression. I told them that I had not meant toaccuse them, as if they, or the rich in general, were responsible forthe misery of the world. True indeed it was, that the superfluity whichthey wasted would, otherwise bestowed, relieve much bitter suffering. These costly viands, these rich wines, these gorgeous fabrics andglistening jewels represented the ransom of many lives. They wereverily not without the guiltiness of those who waste in a land strickenwith famine. Nevertheless, all the waste of all the rich, were itsaved, would go but a little way to cure the poverty of the world. There was so little to divide that even if the rich went share andshare with the poor, there would be but a common fare of crusts, albeitmade very sweet then by brotherly love. 

The folly of men, not their hard-heartedness, was the great cause ofthe world's poverty. It was not the crime of man, nor of any class ofmen, that made the race so miserable, but a hideous, ghastly mistake, acolossal world-darkening blunder. And then I showed them how fourfifths of the labor of men was utterly wasted by the mutual warfare, the lack of organization and concert among the workers. Seeking to makethe matter very plain, I instanced the case of arid lands where thesoil yielded the means of life only by careful use of the watercoursesfor irrigation. I showed how in such countries it was counted the mostimportant function of the government to see that the water was notwasted by the selfishness or ignorance of individuals, since otherwisethere would be famine. To this end its use was strictly regulated andsystematized, and individuals of their mere caprice were not permittedto dam it or divert it, or in any way to tamper with it. 

The labor of men, I explained, was the fertilizing stream which alonerendered earth habitable. It was but a scanty stream at best, and itsuse required to be regulated by a system which expended every drop tothe best advantage, if the world were to be supported in abundance. Buthow far from any system was the actual practice! Every man wasted theprecious fluid as he wished, animated only by the equal motives ofsaving his own crop and spoiling his neighbor's, that his might sellthe better. What with greed and what with spite some fields wereflooded while others were parched, and half the water ran wholly towaste. In such a land, though a few by strength or cunning might winthe means of luxury, the lot of the great mass must be poverty, and ofthe weak and ignorant bitter want and perennial famine. 

Let but the famine-stricken nation assume the function it hadneglected, and regulate for the common good the course of thelife-giving stream, and the earth would bloom like one garden, and noneof its children lack any good thing. I described the physical felicity, mental enlightenment, and moral elevation which would then attend thelives of all men. With fervency I spoke of that new world, blessed withplenty, purified by justice and sweetened by brotherly kindness, theworld of which I had indeed but dreamed, but which might so easily bemade real. But when I had expected now surely the faces around me tolight up with emotions akin to mine, they grew ever more dark, angry, and scornful. Instead of enthusiasm, the ladies showed only aversionand dread, while the men interrupted me with shouts of reprobation andcontempt. "Madman!" "Pestilent fellow!" "Fanatic!" "Enemy of society!"were some of their cries, and the one who had before taken his eyeglassto me exclaimed, "He says we are to have no more poor. Ha! ha!"

"Put the fellow out!" exclaimed the father of my betrothed, and at thesignal the men sprang from their chairs and advanced upon me. 

It seemed to me that my heart would burst with the anguish of findingthat what was to me so plain and so all important was to themmeaningless, and that I was powerless to make it other. So hot had beenmy heart that I had thought to melt an iceberg with its glow, only tofind at last the overmastering chill seizing my own vitals. It was notenmity that I felt toward them as they thronged me, but pity only, forthem and for the world. 

Although despairing, I could not give over. Still I strove with them. Tears poured from my eyes. In my vehemence I became inarticulate. Ipanted, I sobbed, I groaned, and immediately afterward found myselfsitting upright in bed in my room in Dr. Leete's house, and the morningsun shining through the open window into my eyes. I was gasping. Thetears were streaming down my face, and I quivered in every nerve. 

As with an escaped convict who dreams that he has been recaptured andbrought back to his dark and reeking dungeon, and opens his eyes to seethe heaven's vault spread above him, so it was with me, as I realizedthat my return to the nineteenth century had been the dream, and mypresence in the twentieth was the reality. 

The cruel sights which I had witnessed in my vision, and could so wellconfirm from the experience of my former life, though they had, alas!once been, and must in the retrospect to the end of time move thecompassionate to tears, were, God be thanked, forever gone by. Long agooppressor and oppressed, prophet and scorner, had been dust. Forgenerations, rich and poor had been forgotten words. 

But in that moment, while yet I mused with unspeakable thankfulnessupon the greatness of the world's salvation and my privilege inbeholding it, there suddenly pierced me like a knife a pang of shame, remorse, and wondering self-reproach, that bowed my head upon my breastand made me wish the grave had hid me with my fellows from the sun. ForI had been a man of that former time. What had I done to help on thedeliverance whereat I now presumed to rejoice? I who had lived in thosecruel, insensate days, what had I done to bring them to an end? I hadbeen every whit as indifferent to the wretchedness of my brothers, ascynically incredulous of better things, as besotted a worshiper ofChaos and Old Night, as any of my fellows. So far as my personalinfluence went, it had been exerted rather to hinder than to helpforward the enfranchisement of the race which was even then preparing. What right had I to hail a salvation which reproached me, to rejoice ina day whose dawning I had mocked?

"Better for you, better for you, " a voice within me rang, "had thisevil dream been the reality, and this fair reality the dream; betteryour part pleading for crucified humanity with a scoffing generation, than here, drinking of wells you digged not, and eating of trees whosehusbandmen you stoned"; and my spirit answered, "Better, truly. "

When at length I raised my bowed head and looked forth from the window, Edith, fresh as the morning, had come into the garden and was gatheringflowers. I hastened to descend to her. Kneeling before her, with myface in the dust, I confessed with tears how little was my worth tobreathe the air of this golden century, and how infinitely less to wearupon my breast its consummate flower. Fortunate is he who, with a caseso desperate as mine, finds a judge so merciful.