Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/271

 ourselves, he for the price of those old houses and I for a few years of splendor and happiness. . ..

The 'Only one whom life seems to teach nothing is Schoolmaster Lordan. Oblivious of the stress and storm of reality, he continues to be enraptured with education, with culture, with the opportunities offered by the large cities. He is, particularly proud of the Hurley children.

''Lordan. ''The way you've all got on 1 1 tell you what, if every boy and girl I ever taught had turned out a failure I'd feel content and satisfied when I looked at all of you and saw what I've made of you.

 Mary. What you've made of us? I wonder do you really know what you've made of us?

Lordan. Isn't it easily seen? One with a motor car, no less. . . . It was good, sound seed I sowed long ago in the little schoolhouse and it's to-day you're all reaping the harvest.

"Harvest" is a grim picture of civilization in its especially demoralizing effects upon the people who spring from the soil. The mock culture and shallow education which inspire peasant folk with awe, which lure the children away from home, only to crush the vitality out of them or to turn them into cowards and compromisers. The tragedy of a civilization that dooms the tillers of the soil to a dreary monotony of hard toil with little return, or charms them to destruction with the