Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance

by William Dean Howells

  XI

  Mr. Thrall and Lord Moors must have seen us coming, for they met us atthe door of the tent without the intervention of the footman, and gave usquite as much welcome as we could expect in our mission, so disagreeableall round. Mr. Thrall was as fatherly with me as before, and Lord Moorswas as polite to Cyril and Mrs. Chrysostom as could have been wished. Infact he and Cyril were a sort of acquaintances from the time of Cyril'svisit to England where he met the late Earl Moors, the father of thepresent peer, in some of his visits to Toynbee Hall, and the WhitechapelSettlements. The earl was very much interested in the slums, perhapsbecause he was rather poor himself, if not quite slummy. The son was thenat the university, and when he came out and into his title he so farshared his father's tastes that he came to America; it was not slumming,exactly, but a nobleman no doubt feels it to be something like it. Aftera little while in New York he went out to Colorado, where so many needynoblemen bring up, and there he met the Thralls, and fell in love withthe girl. Cyril had understood--or rather Mrs. Cyril,--that it was alove-match on both sides, but on Mrs. Thrall's side it was business. Hedid not even speak of settlements--the English are so romantic when they_are_ romantic!--but Mr. Thrall saw to all that, and the young peoplewere married after a very short courtship. They spent their honeymoonpartly in Colorado Springs and partly in San Francisco, where theThralls' yacht was lying, and then they set out on a voyage round theworld, making stops at the interesting places, and bringing up on thebeach of the Seventh Region of Altruria, on route for the eastern coastof South America. From that time on, Cyril said, we knew their history.

  After Mr. Thrall had shaken hands tenderly with me, and cordially withAristides, he said, "Won't you all come inside and have breakfast withus? My wife and daughter"--

  "Thank you, Mr. Thrall," Cyril answered for us, "we will sit down here,if you please; and as your ladies are not used to business, we will notask you to disturb them."

  "I'm sure Lady Moors," the young nobleman began, but Cyril waved himsilent.

  "We shall be glad later, but not now! Gentlemen, I have asked my friendsAristides Homos and Eveleth Homos to accompany my wife and me thismorning because Eveleth is an American, and will understand yourposition, and he has lately been in America and will be able to clarifythe situation from both sides. We wish you to believe that we areapproaching you in the friendliest spirit, and that nothing could be morepainful to us than to seem inhospitable."

  "Then why," the old man asked, with business-like promptness, "do youobject to our presence here? I don't believe I get your idea."

  "Because the spectacle which your life offers is contrary to good morals,and as faithful citizens we cannot countenance it."

  "But in what way is our life immoral? I have always thought that I was agood citizen at home; at least I can't remember having been arrested fordisorderly conduct."

  He smiled at me, as if I should appreciate the joke, and it hurt me tokeep grave, but suspecting what a bad time he was going to have, Ithought I had better not join him in any levity.

  "I quite conceive you," Cyril replied. "But you present to our people,who are offended by it, the spectacle of dependence upon hireling servicefor your daily comfort and convenience."

  "But, my dear sir," Mr. Thrall returned, "don't we _pay_ for it? Do ourservants object to rendering us this service?"

  "That has nothing to do with the case; or, rather, it makes it worse. Thefact that your servants do not object shows how completely they aredepraved by usage. We should not object if they served you fromaffection, and if you repaid them in kindness; but the fact that youthink you have made them a due return by giving them money shows how farfrom the right ideal in such a matter the whole capitalistic world is."

  Here, to my great delight, Aristides spoke up:

  "If the American practice were half as depraving as it ought logically tobe in their conditions, their social system would drop to pieces. It wasalways astonishing to me that a people with their facilities for evil,their difficulties for good, should remain so kind and just and pure."

  "That is what I understood from your letters to me, my dear Aristides. Iam willing to leave the general argument for the present. But I shouldlike to ask Mr. Thrall a question, and I hope it won't be offensive."

  Mr. Thrall smiled. "At any rate I promise not to be offended."

  "You are a very rich man?"

  "Much richer than I would like to be."

  "How rich?"

  "Seventy millions; eighty; a hundred; three hundred; I don't just know."

  "I don't suppose you've always felt your great wealth a great blessing?"

  "A blessing? There have been times when I felt it a millstone hangedabout my neck, and could have wished nothing so much as that I werethrown into the sea. Man, you don't _know_ what a curse I have felt mymoney to be at such times. When I have given it away, as I have bymillions at a time, I have never been sure that I was not doing more harmthan good with it. I have hired men to seek out good objects for me, andI have tried my best to find for myself causes and institutions andpersons who might be helped without hindering others as worthy, butsometimes it seems as if every dollar of my money carried a blight withit, and infected whoever touched it with a moral pestilence. It hasreached a sum where the wildest profligate couldn't spend it, and itgrows and grows. It's as if it were a rising flood that had touched mylips, and would go over my head before I could reach the shore. I believeI got it honestly, and I have tried to share it with those whose laborearned it for me. I have founded schools and hospitals and homes forold men and old women, and asylums for children, and the blind, and deaf,and dumb, and halt, and mad. Wherever I have found one of my old workmenin need, and I have looked personally into the matter, I have providedfor him fully, short of pauperization. Where I have heard of some giftedyouth, I have had him educated in the line of his gift. I have collecteda gallery of works of art, and opened it on Sundays as well as week-daysto the public free. If there is a story of famine, far or near, I sendfood by the shipload. If there is any great public calamity, my agentshave instructions to come to the rescue without referring the case to me.But it is all useless! The money grows and grows, and I begin to feelthat my efforts to employ it wisely and wholesomely are making me apublic laughing-stock as well as an easy mark for every swindler with ajob or a scheme." He turned abruptly to me. "But you must often haveheard the same from my old friend Strange. We used to talk these thingsover together, when our money was not the heap that mine is now; and itseems to me I can hear his voice saying the very words I have beenusing."

  I, too, seemed to hear his voice in the words, and it was as if speakingfrom his grave.

  I looked at Aristides, and read compassion in his dear face; but the faceof Cyril remained severe and judicial. He said: "Then, if what you say istrue, you cannot think it a hardship if we remove your burden for thetime you remain with us. I have consulted with the National and Regionalas well as the Communal authorities, and we cannot let you continue tolive in the manner you are living here. You must pay your way."

  "I shall be only too glad to do that," Mr. Thrall returned, morecheerfully. "We have not a great deal of cash in hand, but I can give youmy check on London or Paris or New York."

  "In Altruria," Cyril returned, "we have no use for money. You must _pay_your way as soon as your present provision from your yacht is exhausted."

  Mr. Thrall turned a dazed look on the young lord, who suggested: "I don'tthink we follow you. How can Mr. Thrall pay his way except with money?"

  "He must pay with _work_. As soon as you come upon the neighbors here forthe necessities of life you must all work. To-morrow or the next day ornext week at the furthest you must go to work, or you must starve."

  Then he came out with that text of Scripture which had been so efficientwith the crew of the _Little Sally_: "For even when we were with you thiswe commanded you, that if any would not work neither should he eat."

  Lord Moors seemed very interested, and not so much
surprised as I hadexpected. "Yes, I have often thought of that passage and of itssusceptibility to a simpler interpretation than we usually give it.But--"

  "There is but one interpretation of which it is susceptible," Cyrilinterrupted. "The apostle gives that interpretation when he prefaces thetext with the words, 'For yourselves know how you ought to follow us; forwe behaved not ourselves disorderly among you. Neither did we eat anyman's bread for nought; but _wrought with travail_ night and day, that wemight not be chargeable to any of you: not because we have not power, butto make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us.' The whole economyof Altruria is founded on these passages."

  "Literally?"

  "Literally."

  "But, my dear sir," the young lord reasoned, "you surely do not wrenchthe text from some such meaning as that if a man has money, he may payhis way without working?"

  "No, certainly not. But here you have no money, and as we cannot sufferany to 'walk among us disorderly, working not at all,' we must not exemptyou from our rule."