The news of his mother"s death had come at a time when the boy was wild with delirium, at an hour when Waite, and Hitt, and Carmen stood with him in his room and strove to close their ears against the shrieking of the demon that was tearing him. Hitt at once called up Willett, and asked for instructions. A few minutes later came the message that the Ames house was forever barred against the wayward son. And it was not until this bright winter morning, when the lad again sat clothed and in his right mind, that Carmen had gently broken the news to him.
"I never knew her," the boy had said at length, rousing from his meditations. "Few of the rich people"s children know their parents. I was brought up by nurses and tutors. I never knew what it was to put my arms around my mother, and kiss her. I used to long to, at times.
And often I would plan to surprise her by suddenly running into her arms and embracing her. But then, when I would see her, she was always so far away, so cold, so beautifully dressed. And she seldom spoke to me, or to Kathleen, until we were grown up. And by that time I was running wild. And then--then--"
"There!" admonished Carmen, reaching over and taking his hand. "That"s in our little private cemetery, you know. The old error is dead, and we are not going to dig it up and rehea.r.s.e it, are we?"
He smiled wanly. "I"m like a little baby," he said sadly. "I"m just beginning to live. And you are my mother, the only one I"ve ever known."
Carmen laughed merrily. "Let me be your sister," she said. "We are so near of an age, you know."
He raised her hand to his lips. "You are my angel," he murmured. "My bright, beautiful angel. What would I have been without you!"
"Now, Sidney!" she warned, holding up a finger. "What have I told you so often that Jesus said? "Of mine own self I can do nothing." Nor can I, Sidney dear. It was--" her voice sank to a whisper--"it was the Christ-principle. It worked through him as a channel; and it worked through me."
"You"re going to teach me all about that," he said, again pressing her hand to his lips. "You won"t cast me adrift yet, will you, little sister?"
"Cast you adrift! Never, Sidney dear! Why, you"re still mine, you know! I haven"t given you back to yourself yet, have I? But now let"s talk about your work. If you want to write, you are going to, and you are going to write _right_."
"And you, Carmen?" he asked, wondering.
"Back to the Express," she said lightly. "I haven"t written a word for it now for a month. And how dear, funny old Ned has scolded!"
"You--you dropped everything--your work--all--for a poor, worthless hulk like me," he sighed. "I--I can"t understand it. You didn"t know me, hardly."
"Sidney dear," the girl replied. "It wasn"t for you. It was for G.o.d.
Everything I do is "_as unto Him_." I would have done the same for anybody, whether I knew the person or not. I saw, not you, but the human need--oh, such a need! And the Christ-principle made me a human channel for meeting it, that is all. Drop my work, and my own interests! Why, Sidney, what is anything compared with meeting human needs? Didn"t Jesus drop everything and hurry out to meet the sick and the suffering? Was money-making, or society, or personal desire, or worldly pleasure anything to him when he saw a need? You don"t seem to understand that this is what I am here for--to show what love will do."
"No," he murmured. "I--I guess I know only the world"s idea of love."
"And that is love"s counterfeit, self-love, sentimentalism, s.e.x-mesmerism, and all that," she added. "But now, back to your work again. You"re going to write, write, write! My, but the world is hungry for _real_ literature! Your yearning to meet that need is a sign of your ability to do it. But, remember, everything that comes to you comes from within. You are, in fact, a miner; and your mine is your mind; and that is unlimited, for G.o.d is the only mind, infinite and omnipresent. Now you are going to mine that mind.
"Listen," she went on hurriedly. "Don"t be afraid to be afraid. We never fear a real thing; we fear only our false thoughts of things.
Always those thoughts are absolutely wrong, and we wake up and find that we were fearing only fear-thoughts themselves. Haven"t you ever noticed it? Now destroy the chains of fear which limit your thought, and G.o.d will issue!
"Well," without waiting for his reply, "now you have reached that plane of thought where you don"t really care for what the world has to offer you. You have ceased to want to be rich, or famous. You are not afraid to be obscure and poor. You have learned, at least in part, that the real business of this life lies in seeking good, in manifesting and expressing it in every walk, and in reflecting it constantly to your fellow-men. Having learned that, you are ready to live. Remember, there is no luck, no such thing as chance. The cause of everything that can possibly come to you lies within yourself. It is a function of your thought. The thought that you allow to enter your mentality and become active there, later becomes externalized.
Be, oh, so careful, then, about your thought, and the basis upon which it rests! For, in your writing, you have no right to inflict false thought upon your credulous fellow-mortals."
"But," he replied, "we are told that in literature we must deal with human realities, and with things as they are. The human mind exists, and has to be dealt with."
"The human mind does not exist, Sidney, except as supposition. There are no human realities. The world still awaits the one who will show it things as they _really_ are. Human realities, so-called, are the horrible, ghastly unrealities of carnal thought, without any basis of the divine Christ-principle. I know, we are told that the great books of the world are those which preserve and interpret its life. Alas! is it true greatness to detail, over and over again in endless recital, the carnal motives of the human mind, its pa.s.sions and errors, its awful mesmerism, its final doom? Yes, perhaps, on one condition: that, like a true critic, you picture human concepts only to show their unreality, their nothingness, and to show how they may be overcome."
"But most books--"
"Ah, yes, most books are written only to amuse the dispirited human mind for a brief hour, to make it forget for a moment its troubles.
They are literary narcotics; they are sops to jaded appet.i.tes, that"s all. A book, for example, that pictures an injured man discovering a great treasure, and then using it to carry out his schemes of revenge--well, what influence for good has such a work? It is only a stimulus to evil, Sidney. But had it shown him using that great wealth to bless his persecutors and turn them from their mesmerism to real life and good--"
"Such things don"t happen in this world, Carmen."
"But they could, and should, Sidney dear. And they will, some day.
Then will come the new literature, the literature of _good_! And it will make people think, rather than relieve them from the ennui of solid thought, as our present novels do. The intellectual palate then will find only insipidity in such books as pour from our presses now.
The ability to converse glibly about authors who wallow in human unrealities will then no longer be considered the hall-mark of culture. Culture in that day will be conformity to truth."
The lad smiled at the enthusiastic girl. "Little sister," he said, "you are a beautiful idealist."
"But," came her quick reply, "are you not a living ill.u.s.tration of the practicability of my idealism, Sidney?"
The boy choked, and tears filled his eyes. Carmen stole an arm about him. "The most practical man who ever lived, Sidney dear, was Jesus.
And he was the greatest idealist. He had ideas that differed very radically from other people"s, but he did not hide them for fear of giving offense. He was not afraid to shock people with the truth about themselves. He tore down, yes; but he then reconstructed, and on a foundation of demonstrable truth. He was not afraid to defy the Rabbis, the learned, and the puffed-up. He did not bow abjectly before the mandarins and pedagogues. Had he done so, and given the people what they wanted and were accustomed to, they would have made him a king--and his mission would have been a dead failure!"
"And for that they slew him," returned the boy.
"It is the cowardly fear of slaughter, Sidney, that keeps people from coming out and standing for what they know to be right to-day. You are not one of those cravens."
"But the people who do that, Carmen, are called demagogues and muck-rakers!"
She laughed. "And the muck-rakers, Sidney, have made a sorry mess, haven"t they? They destroy without ruth, but seldom, if ever, put forth a sane suggestion for the betterment of conditions. They traffic in sensationalism, carping criticism, and abuse. "To find fault," said Demosthenes, "is easy, and in every man"s power; but to point out the proper remedy is the proof of a wise counselor." The remedy which I point out, Sidney, is the Christ-principle; and all I ask is that mankind seek to demonstrate it, even as Jesus bade us do. He was a success, Sidney, the greatest success the world has ever known. And why? Because he followed ideals with utter loyalty--because he voiced truth without fear--because he made his business the service of humanity. He took his work seriously, not for money, not for human preferment, but for mankind. And his work bears the stamp of eternity."
"I"m afraid--" he began.
"You"re _not_ afraid, Sidney!" the girl quickly interrupted. "Oh, why does the human mind always look for and expect that which it does not want to see come or happen!"
The boy laughed heartily at the quick sally of her delightfully quotidian thought. "You didn"t let me finish," he said. "I was going to say that I"m afraid if I write and speak only of spiritual things I shall not be understood by the world, nor even given a hearing."
"Well, don"t use that word "afraid." My! how the human mind clings to everything, even words, that express its chief bogy, fear."
"All right; I accept the rebuke. But, my question?"
"That was the case with Jesus. And yet, has anything, written or spoken, ever endured as his spiritual teachings? The present-day novel or work of fiction is as fleeting as the human thought it attempts to crystallize. Of the millions of books published, a handful endure.
Those are they which ill.u.s.trate the triumph of good over evil in human thought. And the greatest of such books is the Bible."
"Well, I"m hunting for a subject now."
"Don"t hunt. Wait--and _know_! The subject will then choose you. It will pelt you. It will drive you to the task of transcribing it. Just as one is now driving me. Sidney--perhaps I can give you the subject!
Perhaps I am the channel for this, too!"
He looked at her inquisitively. "Well," bending over closer to her, "what is it, little sister?"
The girl looked out over the dripping shrubs and the soft snow. But her thought was not there. She saw a man, a priest, she knew not where, but delving, plodding, digging for the truth which the human mind has buried under centuries and centuries of material _debris_.
She saw him, patiently bearing his man-made burden, striving to shield a tender, abandoned girl, and to transfer to her his own great worldly knowledge, but without its dross. She saw the mighty sacrifice, when the man tore her from himself, and thrust her out beyond the awful danger in which he dwelt. She understood now. The years had taught her much. It was love--aye, the love that alone makes men great, the love that lays down human life in self-immolating service.
She turned to the waiting lad. "You will write it, Sidney? I will tell you the whole beautiful story. It is an ill.u.s.tration of the way love works through human channels. And perhaps--perhaps, some day, the book may reach him--yes, some day. And it will tell him--oh, Sidney, it will tell him that I know, and that I love him, love him, love him!"
In the office of the manager of the Express three heads were close together that morning, and three faces bore outward evidence of the serious thought within.
"Miss Wall tells me, Ned," Hitt was saying, "that her father used to be a.s.sociated with Ames, and that, at his demise, he left his estate, badly entangled, for Ames to settle. Now it transpires that Ames has been cunning enough to permit Miss Wall to draw upon his bank almost without limit, he making up any deficit with his own personal notes."
"Ah!" commented Haynerd. "I think I see the shadow of his fine hand!"