Page:The Masses, Volume 1, Number 3.pdf/18

 THE

18

Revolutionary Mexico (Continued from page 6) and was entirely unprepared. H i s attempt to crush it has met with miserable and ignominious failure. Three weeks of the Revolution proved the latent strength it possessed. But Diaz was still unconvinced. Perhaps he remains so until this very day. In the meanwhile, however, the bonds are fall­ ing, national credit is crumbling away, Diaz's army is beaten, outgeneraled, slowly going to its destruction; his friends, his compeers, his crea­ tures are taking French leave. A n d there i n the castle of Chapultepec the Grand O l d M a n still hangs on to his power with a bulldog's grip, giv­ ing orders to his subordinates to destroy the rebel army and shoot them all "red-handed." Then he sits down and weeps. Let h i m weep for once. H e cannot in the short time of life still left to him—no, not even if he had a thousand lives to live—wash away with his tears the bloody stains upon his cruel, inhuman reign.

Iolanthe's Wedding (Continued from page 8) here ? W h y didn't you wake me up, you scurvy blackguards, you? M y friend Hanckel here, and I snoring—you dogs !" Iolanthe turned scarlet with shame. A n d to relieve the painful situation I said to her : "Never mind, I know h i m. " Yes, gentlemen, I knew the old fellow, but 1 did not know his daughter. (To be continued)

A Vow (Continued from page 11) her, and stroked her hair. W h e n she turned around again to M r. Ladislaw an anxious tear glittered on each l i d. "But you found a sly way of procuring a ham sandwich for Miss Kate," exclaimed M r. L a ­ dislaw, and rose. "Sly or not sly—if you are angry at us, well, we can't help it." " B y no means. O n the contrary—perhaps the ladies will permit me to leave for a few moments and come back?" "What for? Hetty can tend to it—please." " V e r y well," said M r. Ladislaw, and handed Miss M a r y a two-dollar bill, the last he had. "Perhaps it will buy a bottle of wine, too." Soon after, M r. Ladislaw drank a toast to the health of the three friends. A good warm feeling stole over h i m at the sight of the young girls devouring with appetite the meal he had pro­ vided for them. A s soon as they had finished eating he left. A s he passed through the narrow, gloomy passages of the house, a profound sadness seized him. H e put out his hands, groping his way, and touched the slimy walls, which exuded eternal dampness. A n d it seemed to him he was feeling the tears of the poverty dwelling there, the tortured poverty that wrestled with hunger and cold. Those tears filtered down to his heart, and burned and bit like an acid fluid. H e stood still an instant and listened to his soul within him making a vow to itself. The adoption of men's natures to the demands of associated life will become so complete that all sense of internal as well as external restraint and compulsion will entirely disappear. Right conduct will become instinctive and spontaneous ; duty will be synonymous with pleasure. —Hudson's Philosophy of Herbert Spencer.

March, 1911

MASSES

Johnson was an "unusual" person. But there was something else that was harder for Patty-Maud (Continued from page 15) to admit. Mabel Johnson was attributing to her a virtue of which P a t t y - M a u d was incapable. "There's only one thing more, i f you'll be so Mabel Johnson was illuminating the incident of good as to listen. I have a pride in saying this, the afternoon with a bigness of feeling which although again I do not wish to offend. I want you to realize that I understood why you did it. Patty-Maud could not achieve. That hurt. Moreover, P a t t y - M a u d could not close her eyes A n d I want to assure you that I won't presume to the truth of Mabel Johnson's point of view. on your kindness—that I never in the world could think things could be any different between—" It was true that, as classmates, they were bound H e r voice faltered perceptibly, but she finally together by the impalpable thread of brotherhood. The same bond had tied aliens together since brought it out. "Between you and me. I know the beginning of the world and in all the possible just why you did it. It wasn't devotion to N o r a complications of the human condition. Social —to Miss O ' R i l e y, " she corrected herself, as if fearful of giving unnecessary offense, "although equality between her and Mabel Johnson was im­ we all love her enough to do anything for her— possible, but surely, they could stand shoulder to I'd die for her tomorrow, I guess. Y o u did it shoulder on this tiny strip of neutral ground. Surely without loss to her sense of honor or to because we are classmates. There's a bond in her sense of racial responsibility, she could ac­ that—that—. W e could do for each other—AS classmates—things that we could never do under cept Mabel Johnson as a member of a class of any other circumstances in the world. It's like which, thereafter, she could with a free con­ that feeling that that Russian reformer told us science, become president. about at the Emmanuel Club which made men and F r o m deeper than this came a more poignant women of all religions and races and colors fight feeling. P a t t y - M a u d knew that, in essentials, her behind the barricades at Moscow. It's because I attitude towards the race which Mabel Johnson myself have that same wonderful feeling that I represented, could never change. Y e t here, she was confronted for the first time in her life by the Exceptional Case. Here was a girl, who, except for the infusion i n the skin of a certain pigment, was her own counterpart—a girl, sub­ ject, like herself, to all the tragedies of the woman-lot—a girl with some of her own hopes and ambitions and with all her own anxieties and affections—a girl, moreover, fighting social handi­ caps and racial limitations that she could never know. Patty-Maud's eyes, which had been kept fixed frostily on her companion's face, melted and filled slowly. Mabel Johnson's deep gaze filled too, and for a long instant grey eyes and brown eyes said to each other the things that could never be put in words. " O h, that's all right, Miss Johnson," PattyM a u d said at last. "It's nice that I happened to be about so as to take care of your grandfather. A n d, by the way, you took the Chaucer course last year, I remember. I wonder if you would come i n for a moment and talk over that matter of the 'petrified datives' with me."

The Classmates

Natural Philosophy By

Drawn by Wm. Washburn Nutting

The International Menace of the Roman Court.

WILHELM

OSTWALD

Translated by

THOMAS SELTZER Overshadowing of American Catholic Modernism by the Far-reaching Influence of Merry del Val.

wanted to assure you—that I understood—that I never would presume upon it." Patty-Maud had seemed to listen to all this with a surface attention, polite but without in­ terest. B u t underneath this crust her mind was working actively. It was true—what N o r a had said—Mabel

A n excellent resume of modern natural philosophy as opposed to the academic philosophy. O f inestimable value to every one who desires to obtain a knowledge of the general results of science up to date with the least possible expenditure of time. The author, Professor Ostwald, is the founder of Physical Chemistry, and one of the leading scientists of the world.

Price, $1.00 net Send your orders to

T H E M A S S E S P U B L I S H I N G GO. 112 E A S T 19TH S T R E E T, N E W Y O R K

O n l y a small number of the February issue of THE

M A S S E S are left, and they are going rapidly.

If y o u want to have the Sudermann story which began in February complete send in your order at once. Price, 5 cents a copy.