Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/493

 "This last act of mine, which will be regarded as the consummation of failure, is the greatest opportunity to be true that I have ever had.

"To go forth on foot before this community, held to answer for my convictions, fills me with a sense of abandon to immolation upon high altars that is almost intoxicating.

"I can almost wish it might never be known whether I spoke the truth or not about the Dounay diamonds; that in my death, unvindicated, I might lie yonder on the hills of Piedmont; that on a simple slab just large enough to bear it, might be written no name but only this:

''He believed something hard enough to live for it. ' ''

"I wish even that you might crucify me, take me out on Broadway here and nail me to a trolley pole. But you will not do this. I am not so worthy. You are not so brave. Those men had the courage of their convictions who nailed up the Galilean and hurled down with stones the first martyr. You have not. Courage to-day survives; but it is reserved for ignoble struggles. Men are more ready to die for their appetites than to live for their convictions. Men fear to be uncomfortable, to be sneered at, to be defeated. Paugh! Defeat is not a thing to fear. To be untrue is the blackest terror! To become involved for the sake of one's convictions should not be regarded as calamity. Yet it is,—in these soft days.

"The hope that the fall, even of one so humble and unimportant as I, may be some slight protest against this spirit of weakness, takes out the sting and gives me a delirious kind of joy.

"I would like to have been a great preacher. I am not. I would I had a tongue of eloquence to fire men to this passion of mine. I have not. That is the pity! I was proud and jealous of my position. I have lost it.