A Man's World

"I'd have submitted joyfully."

Her arm tightened about my neck.

"And do you know what I would have done then, Daddy?" she asked after a moment's silence. "I guess – just as soon as we were alone – I'd have torn up that contract into little pieces. And I'd have said, 'Oh, My Lord and Master, be humble to me in public, for the sake of all my poor sisters who are afraid – but here in private, please, trample on me some. And oh! if you love me – make me darn your socks.'

"Oh Daddy, that's the heart-break of it all" – there was a catch in her voice – "That's what's hard. We know that we must fight for our freedom and equality – for the other women's sake. And all the while – if we are in love – what our heart cries out for is a ruler. We want to serve."

I think when I get a chance I will tell Billy to show his muscle now and then.

So this is where I am today. My experiment in ethics? It has failed. I can no more surely distinguish right from wrong today, than when I was a boy in school.

My best efforts landed Jerry – innocent – in prison. The one time when I violated every rule I had laid down for my guidance in the Tombs, when I lied profusely, played dirty politics, compounded a felony, and went on a man-hunt, with hate in my heart, I disposed of the pimp Blackie, freed Nina, gave happiness to Norman. Marie is the result.

Certainly one of the best things in my life has been Ann's love. It came to me without any striving on my part, it has been in no way a reward for effort or aspiration. Step by step it has seemed to me wrong. I do not believe in free love. I cannot justify it any more than I could stealing eggs when I was a boy. It was something I wanted and which I took. Yet I am quite sure it has been good.

On the other hand, the time when I strove hardest to reach a higher plane, when I was most anxious to be upright and honorable, those days I spent in France with Suzanne, resulted in the most bitter pain, the most dismal failure of my life. This is not a little thing to me, even after all these years. The days come when I must open my trunk, take out her rucksac and the map – the only mementos I have of her – they are days of anguish. Why should it not have been? My life seems bitter and of small worth when I think of what it might have been with her.

I am as much at a loss today in regard to moral values as I ever was. I have little hope left of succeeding in my experiment. This is the sad thing. The good fight has been a long one. From the continued campaigning, I am prematurely spent. Under fifty, I am prematurely old. The élan of youth is gone.

At the Hotel des Invalides in Paris they tell the story of a war-scarred crippled veteran of the Napoleonic wars. His breast was covered with service medals. At one of the annual inspections a young commander complimented on his many decorations. "My General," the old soldier replied, "I can no longer carry a musket, it would have been better to have died gloriously at Austerlitz."

I am far from the sad pass of this decrepit veteran, yet his story touches me nearly. The best days have flown. I have lived intensely. Into each combat whether the insignificant skirmish of my daily work, or the more decisive battles – I have thrown myself with spendthrift energy. I do not regret this attitude towards life. I am glad I met its problems face to face – with passionate endeavor. But the price must be paid. Nowadays I have little ardor left. The youthful questing spirit is gone – and I have not found the Holy Grail.

Perhaps these young people are right. I may have started wrong – in trying to find the truth for myself alone. Perhaps there are no individualistic ethics. They may find the answer expressed in social terms. Perhaps. But I have no energy left to begin the experiment again.

But once more I must repeat, I do not regret my manner of life. We are offered but two choices; to accept things as they are or to strive passionately for new and better forms. Defeat is not shameful. But supine complaisance surely is.

Out of the lives of all my generation a little increment of wisdom has come to the race. Neither the renaissance, nor the reformation seem to me as fundamental changes as we have wrought. We have made the nation suddenly conscious of itself. We have not cured its ills, but at least we have made great strides in diagnosis. And my experiment – in its tiny, coral-insect way – has been an integral part in this increment of wisdom.

I am more optimistic today than ever before. And if I wish to live on – as I surely do – it is to watch these youngsters in their struggle for the better form. How much better equipped they are than we were, how much clearer they see!

I think of myself as I left college – so afraid of life that I was glad to find shelter among old books. I recall how strange seemed that first dinner in the Children's House with Norman. And then I think of Billy. Why! The knowledge of life those pioneer settlement workers were just beginning to discover are conversational commonplaces among Billy's friends. The abolition of poverty!

The vision comes to me of Margot, delicate, fragile, ignorant – too ignorant to be afraid. All the wisdom of the ages – past and future – seemed to her to be bound up in the King James version. I compare her with Marie. She is as strong as a peasant girl. I have given up playing tennis with her, she beats me too easily. And the certain, fearless way she looks out at life takes my breath, leaves me panting just as her dashing net play does. She speaks of Ann as early Victorian, she would I fear place Margot as Elizabethan.

Most wonderful of all, these youngsters have never had to fight with God, never had to tear themselves to pieces escaping from the deadly formalism and tyranny of Church Dogma. They never had to call themselves Atheists.

And then I think of how Billy and Marie are facing this biggest problem of all – this business of love. They will have their squalls no doubt and run into shoal water perhaps. But they are not blindfolded as I was, as Norman was – as all my generation was. Pure luck was all that could save us. They are steering – not drifting.

Yes. My story is ended. The old troupe has been crowded off the stage. There would be little interest in writing of the work left me – brushing the wigs of the leading man, packing the star's trunk, – pushing the swan for Lohengrin, currying the horses of the Walkyrie – it will all be behind the scene.

 
And how I envy them their faith!
Ave – Juventas – morituri salutamus!