A traveler from Altruria, romance

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A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA

TRomance

BY

W. D. HOWELLS

author of

the coast op bohemia " " the quality of mercy '

"a hazard of new fortunes" etc.

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1894 ^

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Copyright, 1894, by William Dean Howells.
Ali rigftts reserved.

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Electrotyped by J. A, Howells d Co . Jefferson, Ohio.

A TKAVELEE FEOM ALTEUEIA.

I CONFESS that with all my curiosity to meet an
Altrurian, I was in no hospitable mood towards the
traveler when he finally presented himself, pursuant
to the letter of advice sent me by the friend who in-
troduced him. It would be easy enough to take care
of him in the hotel ; I had merely to engage a room
for him, and have the clerk tell him his money was
not good if he tried to pay for anything. But I had
swung fairly into my story ; its people were about me
all the time ; I dwelt amidst its events and places, and
I did not see how I could welcome my guest among
them, or abandon them for him. Still, when he actu-
ally arrived, and I took his hand as he stepped from
the train, I found it less difficult to say that I was glad
to see him than I expected. In fact, I was glad, for I
could not look upon his face without feeling a glow of

2 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

kindness for him. I bad not the least trouble in iden-
tifying him, he was so unlike all the Americans who
dismounted from the train with him, and who all
looked hot, worried and anxious. He was a man no
longer young, but in what we call the heyday of life,
when our own people are so absorbed in making pro-
vision for the future that they may be said not to live
in the present at all. This Altrurian's whole counte-
nance, and especially his quiet, gentle eyes, expressed
a vast contemporaneity, with bounds of leisure re-
moved to the end of time ; or, at least, this was the
effect of something in them which I am obliged to re-
port in rather fantastic terms. lie was above the
middle height and he carried himself vigorously. His
face was sun-burnt, or sea-burnt, where it was not
bearded ; and although I knew from my friend's letter
that he was a man of learning, and distinction in his
own country, I should never have supposed him a per-
son of scholarly life, he was so far from sicklied over
with anything like the pale cast of thought. When
he took the hand I offered him in my half-hearted
welcome he gave it a grasp that decided me to confine
our daily greetings to something much less muscular.
" Let me have your bag," I said, as we do when we

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 3

meet people at the train, and he instantly bestowed a
rather heavy valise upon me, with a smile in his be-
nignant eyes, as if it had been the greatest favor,
" Have you got any checks ? " I asked.

" Yes," he said, in very good English, but with an
accent new to me : " I bought two." He gave them
to me and I passed them to our hotel porter, who was
waiting there with the baggage cart. Then I proposed
that we should walk across the meadow to the house,
which is a quarter of a mile or so from the station.
We started, but he stopped suddenly and looked back
over his shoulder. " Oh, you needn't be troubled
about your trunks," I said. " The porter will get them
to the house all right. They'll be in your room by
the time we get there."

" But he's putting them into the wagon himself,"
said the Altrurian.

" Yes ; he always does that. He's a strong young
fellow. He'll manage it. You needn't — " I could
not fini§h saying he need not mind the porter ; he
was rushing back to the station, and I had the mor
tification of seeing him take an end of each trunk
and help the porter toss it into the wagon ; some
lighter pieces he put in himself, and he did not stop

4 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

till all the baggage the train had left was disposed of.

I stood holding his valise, unable to put it down in
my embarrassment at this eccentric performance,
which had been evident not to me alone, but to all the
people who arrived by the train, and all their friends
who came from the hotel to meet them. A number
of these passed me on the tally-ho coach ; and a lady,
who had got her husband with her for over Sunday,
and was in very good spirits, called gayly down to me :
" Your friend seems fond of exercise ! "

" Yes," I answered dryly ; the sparkling repartee
which ought to have come to my help failed to show
up. But it was impossible to be vexed with the Al-
trurian when he returned to me, unruffled by his bout
with the baggage, and serenely smiling.

" Do you know," he said, " I fancied that good fel-
low was ashamed of my helping him. I hope it didn't
seem a reflection upon him in any way before your
people ? I ought to liave thought of that."

" I guess we can make it right with him. I dare
say he felt more surprised than disgraced. But we
must make haste a little now ; your train was half an
hour late, and we shall not stand so good a chance for
supper if we are not there pretty promptly."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 5

" No ? " said the Altrurian. " Why ? "

" Well," I said, with evasive lightness, " first come,
first served, you know. That's human nature."

" Is it ? " he returned, and he looked at me as one
does who suspects another of joking.

" Well, isn't it ?" I retorted ; but I hurried to add :
" Besides, I want to have time after supper to show
you a bit of our landscape. I think you'll enjoy it."
I knew he had arrived in Boston that morning by
steamer, and I now thought it high time to ask him :
" Well, what do you think of America, anyway ? " I
ought really to have asked him this the moment he
stepped from the train.

" Oh," he said, " I'm intensely interested," and I
perceived that he spoke with a certain reservation.
"As the most advanced country of its time, I've always
been very curious to see it."

The last sentence raised my dashed spirits again,
and I said confidently : " You must find our system
of baggage checks delightful." I said this because
it is is one of the first things we brag of to for-
eigners, and I had the habit of it. " By the way,"
I ventured to add, " I suppose you meant to say you
brought two checks when I asked you for them at

6 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

the train just now ? But you really said you bought
them."

" Yes," the Altrurian replied, " I gave half a dollar
apiece for them at the station in Boston. I saw other
people doing it," he explained, noting my surprise.
" Isn't it the custom ? "

" Fm happy to say it isn't yet, on most of our roads.
They were tipping the baggage man, to make sure
tliat he checked their baggage in time, and put it on
the train. I had to do that myself when I came up ;
otherwise it might have got along here sometime next
day. But the system is perfect."

" The poor man looked quite worn out," said the
Altrurian, " and I am glad I gave him something. He
seemed to have several hundred pieces of baggage to
look after, and he wasn't embarassed like your porter
by my helping him put my trunks into the car. May
\ I confess that the meanness of the station, its insuffi-
cient facilities, its shabby waiting rooms, and its whole
crowded and confused appearance gave me rather a
bad impression ? "

" I know," I hatl to own, " it's shameful ; but you
wouldn't Iiave found another station in the city so
bad."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 7

"Ah, then," said the Altrurian, " I suppose this par-
ticular road is too poor to employ more baggage men,
or build new stations ; they seemed rather shabby all
the way up."

" Well, no," I was obliged to confess, " it's one of
the richest roads in the country. The stock stands at
about 180. But I'm really afraid we shall be late to
supper, if we don't get on," I broke off ; though I was
not altogether sorry to arrive after the porter had dis-
posed of the baggage. I dreaded another display of
active sympathy on the part of my strange companion;
I have often felt sorry myself for the porters of hotels,
but I have never thought of offering to help them
handle the heavy trunks that they manage.

The Altrurian was delighted with the hotel ; and in
fact it did look extremely pretty with its branching
piazzas full of well-dressed people, and its green lawns
where the children were playing. I led the way to
the room which I had taken for him next my own ; it
was simply furnished, but it was sweet with matting,
fresh linen and pure white-washed walls. I flung open ^
the window blinds and let him get a glimpse of the
mountains purpling under the sunset, the lake beneath,
and the deeply foliaged shores.

8 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Glorious ! Glorious ! " he sighed.

" Yes," I modestly assented. '' We think that's
rather fine." He stood tranced before the window,
and I thought I had better say, " Well, now I can't
give you much time to get the dust of travel off ; the
dining room doors close at eight, and we must hurry
down."

" ni be with you in a moment," he said, pulling off
his coat.

I waited impatiently at the foot of the stairs, avoid-
ing the question I met on the lips and in the eyes of
my acquaintance. The fame of my friend's behavior
at the station must have spread through the whole
place ; and everybody wished to know who he was. I
answered simply he was a traveller from Altruria ; and
in some cases I went farther and explained that the
Altrurians were peculiar.

In much less time than it seemed my friend found
me ; and then I had a little compensation for my suf-
fering in his behalf. I could see that, whatever peo-
ple said of him, they felt the same mysterious liking
at sight of liim that I had felt. He had made a little
change in his dress, and I perceived that the women
thought him not only good-looking, but well-dressed.

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 9

They followed liim with their eyes as we went into
the dining room, and I was rather proud of being with
him, as if I somehow shared the credit of his clothes
and good looks. The Altrurian himself seemed most
struck with the head waiter, who showed us to our
places, and while we were waiting, for our supper I
found a chance to explain that he was a divinity stu-
dent from one of the fresh-water colleges, and was
serving here during his summer vacation. This seemed
to interest my friend so much that I went on to tell
him that many of the waitresses, whom he saw stand-
ing there subject to the order of the guests, were
country school mistresses in the winter.

"Ah, that is as it should be," he said ; " that is the
kind of thing I expected to meet with in America."

" Yes," I responded, in my flattered national vanity,
" if America means anything at all it means the honor
of work and the recognition of personal worth every-
where. I hope you are going to make a long stay
with us. We like to have travellers visit us who can
interpret the spirit of our institutions as well as read
their letter. As a rule, Europeans never quite get
our point of view. Now a great many of these wait-
resses are ladies, in the true sense of the word : self-

10 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

respectful, intelligent, refined, and fit to grace "

I was interrupted by the noise my friend made in
suddenly pushing back his chair and getting to his
feet " What's the matter ? " I asked. " You're not
ill, I hope?"

But he did not hear me. He had run half down
the dining hall toward the slender young girl who was
bringing us our supper. I had ordered rather gener-
ously, for my friend had owned to a good appetite,
and I was hungry myself with waiting for him, so
that the tray the girl carried was piled up with heavy
dishes. To my dismay I saw, rather than heard at
that distance, the Altrurian enter into a polite contro-
versy with her, and then, as if overcoming all her
scruples by sheer strength of will, possess himself of
the tray and make off with it toward our table. The
poor child followed him, blushing to her hair ; the
head waiter stood looking helplessly on ; the guests,
who at that late hour were fortunately few, were sim-
ply aghast at the scandal ; the Altrurian alone seemed
to think his conduct the most natural thing in the
world. He put the tray on the side table near us, and
m spite of our waitress's protests insisted upon arrang-
ing the little bird-bath dishes before our plates. Then

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 11

at last he sat down, and the girl, flushed and tremu-
lous, left the room, as I could not help suspecting, to
have a good cry in the kitchen: She did not come
back, and the head waiter, who was perhaps afraid to
send another in her place, looked after our few wants
himself. He kept a sharp eye on my friend, as if he
were not quite sure he was safe, but the Altrurian re-
sumed the conversation with all that lightness of spir-
its which I noticed in him after he helped the porter
with the baggage. I did not think it the moment to
take him to task for what he had just done ; I was
not even sure that it was the part of a host to do so at
all, and between the one doubt and the other I left
the burden of the talk to him.

" What a charming young creature ! " he began.
" I never saw anything prettier than the way she had
of refusing my help, absolutely without coquetry or
affectation of any kind. She is, as you said, a perfect
lady, and she graces her work, as I am sure she would
grace any exigency of life. She quite realizes my
ideal of an American girl, and I see now what the
spirit of your country must be from such an expression
of it." I wished to tell him that while a country
school teacher who waits at table in a summer hotel is

12 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

very much to be respected in her sphere, she is not
regarded with that high honor which some other wo-
men command among us ; but I did not find this very
easy, after what I had said of our esteem for labor ;
and while I was thinking how I could hedge, my friend
went on. " I liked England greatly, and I liked
the English, but I could not like the theory of their
civilization, or the aristocratic structure of their so-
ciety. It seemed to me iniquitous, for^e believe
that inequality and iniquity are the same in the last
analysis/j

At this I found myself able to say : " Yes, there is
something terrible, something shocking, in the frank
brutality with which Englishmen affirm the essential
inequality of men. The affirmation of the essential
equality of men was the first point of departure with
OS, when we separated from them."

" I know," said the Altrurian. " How grandly it
is expressed in your glorious Declaration."

** Ah, you have read our Declaration of Indepen-
dence then?"

"Every Altrurian has read that," answered my
friend.

" Well," I went on smoothly, and I hoped to ren-

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 13

der what I was going to say the means of enlightening
him without offense concerning the little mistake he
he had just made with the waitress ; " of course we
don't take that in its closest literality."

" I don't understand you," he said.

"Why, you know it was rather the political than -,'. , -
the social traditions of England that we broke with, ,^,3-
in the revolution."

" How is that ? " he returned. " Didn't you break
with monarchy and nobility, and ranks and classes ? "

" Yes, we broke with all those things."

" But I found them a part of the social as well as
the political structure in England. You have no
kings or nobles here. Have you any ranks or classes ? "

" Well, not exactly in the English sense. Our ranks
and classes, such as we have, are what I may call vol-
untary."

" Oh, I understand. I suppose that from time to
time certain ones among you feel the need of serving,
and ask leave of the commonwealth to subordinate
themselves to the rest of the state, and perform all the J /i^^
lowlier offices in it. Such persons must be held in
peculiar honor. Is it something like that ? "

" Well, no, I can't say it's quite like that. In fact,

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14 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

I think rd better let you trust to your own observa-
tion of our life."

*' But I'm sure," said the Altrurian, with a simplic-
ity so fine that it was a long time before I could believe
it quite real, " that I shall approach it so much more
intelligently with a little instruction from you. You
say that your social divisions are voluntary. But do
I understand that those who serve among you do not
wish to do so ? "

"Well, 1 don't suppose they would serve if they
could help it," I replied.

" Surely," said the Altrurian with a look of horror,
*• you don't mean that they are slaves."

*' Oh, no ! Oh, no ! " I said ; " the War put an
end to that. We are all free, now, black and
white."

*' But if they do not wish to serve, and arc not held
in peculiar honor for serving "

" I see that my word • voluntary ' has misled you,"
I put m. " It isn't the word exactly. The divisions
among us are rather a process of natural selection.
You will see, as you get better acquainted with the
woi kings of our institutions, tliat there are no arbitrary
distinctions here, but the fitness of the work for the

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 15

man and the man for the work determines the social 1

rank that each one holds."

" Ah, that is fine ! " cried the Altrurian with a glow
of enthusiasm. " Then I suppose that these intelli-
gent young people who teach school in winter and
serve at table in the summer are in a sort of pro-
visional state, waiting for the process of natural selec-
tion to determine whether they shall finally be teachers
or waiters."

" Yes, it might be stated in some such terms," I
assented, though I was not altogether easy in my
mind. It seemed to me that I was not quite candid
with this most candid spirit. I added, " You know /
we are a sort of fatalists here in America. We are / ''^H
great believers in the doctrine that it will all come out
right in the end."

" Ah, I don't wonder at that," said the Altrurian,
" if the process of natural selection works so perfectly
among you as you say. But I am afraid I don't un-
derstand this matter of your domestic service yet. I
believe you said that all honest work is honored in
America. Then no social slight attaches to service, I
suppose ? "

" Well, I can't say that, exactly. The fact is, a cer-

16 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

tain social slight does attach to service, and that is
one reason why I don't quite like to have students
wait at table. It won't be pleasant for them to re-
member it in after life, and it won't be pleasant for
their children to remember it."

" Then the slight would descend ? "

" I think it would. One wouldn't like to think
one's father or mother had been at service."

The Altrurian said nothing for a moment. Then
he remarked, " So it seems that while all honest work
is honored among you, there are some kinds of honest
work that are not honored so much as others."

"Yes."

" Why ? "

"Because some occupations are more degrading
than others."

" But why ? " he persisted, as I thought a little un-
reasonably.

" Really," I said, " I think I must leave you to im-
agine."

" I am afraid I can't," he said sadly. " Then, if
domestic service is degrading in your eyes, and people
are not willingly servants among you, may I ask why
any are servants ? "

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 17

" It is a question of bread and butter. They are
obliged to be."

" That is, they are forced to do work that is hateful
and disgraceful to them because they cannot live
without ? "

"Excuse me," I said, not at all liking this sort of
pursuit, and feeling it fair to turn even upon a guest
who kept it up. " Isn't it so with you in Altruria ? "

" It was so once," he admitted, " but not now. In
fact, it is like a waking dream to find oneself in the
presence of conditions here that we outlived so long
ago."

There wa^ an unconscious superiority in this speech
that nettled me, and stung me to retort : " We do not
expect to outlive them. We regard them as final, and
as indestructibly based in human nature itself."

" Ah," said the Altrurian with a delicate and caress-
ing courtesy, " have I said something offensive ? "

" Not at all," I hastened to answer. " It is not
surprising that you do not get our point of view ex-
actly. You will, by and by, and then, I think, you
will see that it is the true one. We have found that
the logic of our convictions could not be applied to
the problfem of domestic service. It is everywhere a

.^u^-

18 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

very curious and perplexing problem. The simple old
solution of the problem was to own your servants;
but we found that this was not consistent with the
spirit of our free institutions. As soon as it was
abandoned the anomaly began. We had outlived the
primitive period when the housekeeper worked with
her domestics and they were her help, and were called
so ; and we had begun to have servants to do all the
household work, and to call them so. This state of
things never seemed right to some of our purest and
best people. They fancied, as you seem to have done,
that to compel people through their necessities to do
your hateful drudgery, and to wound and shame them
with a name which every American instinctively re-
sents, was neither republican nor Christian. Some of
our thinkers tried to mend matters by making their
domestics a part of their families ; and in the life of
Emerson you'll find an amusing account of his attempt
to have his servant eat at the same table with himself
and his wife. It wouldn't work. lie and his wife
could stand it, but the servant couldn't."

I paused, for this was where the laugh ought to
have come in. The Altrurian did not laugh, he merely
asked : " Why ? "

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRUKIA. 19

" Well, because the servant knew, if they didn't,
that they were a whole world apart in their traditions,
and were no more fit to associate than New Englanders
and New Zealanders. In the mere matter of educa-
tion "

"But I thought you said that these young girls
who wait at table here were teachers."

" Oh, I beg your pardon ; I ought to have ex-
plained. By this time it had become impossible, as
it now is, to get American girls to take service except
on some such unusual terms as we have in a summer
hotel ; and the domestics were already ignorant for-
eigners, fit for nothing else. In such a place as this
it isn't so bad. It is more as if the girls worked in a
shop or a factory. They command their own time, in
a measure ; their hours are tolerably fixed, and they
have each other's society. In a private family they
would be subject to order at all times, and they would
have no social life. They would be in the family,
but not of it. American girls understand this, and
so they won't go out to service in the usual way.
Even in a summer hotel the relation has its odious
aspects. The system of giving fees seems to me de-
grading to those who have to take them. To offer a

20 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

student or a teacher a dollar for personal service — it
isn't right, or I can't make it so. In fact, the whole
thing is rather anomalous with us. The best that
yon can say of it is that it works, and we don't know
what else to do."

"But I don't see yet," said the Altrurian, "just
why domestic service is degi'ading in a country where
all kinds of work arc honored."

"Well, my dear fellow, I have done my best to
explain. As I intimated before, we distinguish ; and
in the different kinds of labor we distinguish against
domestic service. I dare say it is partly because of
the loss of independence which it involves. People
naturally despise a dependent."

" AVliy ? " asked the Altrurian, with that innocence
of his which I was beginning to find rather trying.

"Why?" I retorted. "Because it implies weak-
ness."

"And is weakness considered despicable among
you ? " he pursued.

" In every community it is despised practically, if
not theoretically," I tried to explain. "The great
thing that America has done is to offer the race an
opportunity : the opportunity for any man to rise

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 21

above the rest, and to take the highest place, if he is
able." I had always been proud of this fact, and I
thought I had put it very well, but the Altrurian did
not seem much impressed by it.

He said : "I do not see how it differs from any
country of the past in that. But perhaps you mean
that to rise carries with it an obligation to those
below. ' If any is first among you, let him be your
servant.' Is it something like that?"

" Well, it is not quite like that," I answered, re-
membering how very little our self-made men as a
class had done for others. " Everyone is expected to
look out for himself here. I fancy that there would
be very little rising if men were expected to rise for
the sake of others, in America. How is it with you
in Altruria ? " I demanded, hoping to get out of a cer-
tain discomfort I felt, in that way. " Do your risen
men generally devote themselves to the good of the
community after they get to the top ? "

" There is no rising among us," he said, with what
seemed a perception of the harsh spirit of my ques-
tion ; and he paused a moment before he asked in his
turn, " How do men rise among you ? "

"That would be rather a long story," I replied.

22 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" But putting it in the rough, I should say that they
rose by their talents, their shrewdness, their ability
to seize an advantage and turn it to their own
»V^I account."

" And is that considered noble ? "

" It is considered smart. It is considered at the
worst far better than a dead level of equality. Arc
all men equal in Altruria? Are they all alike gifted
or beautiful, or short or tall ? "

" No, they are only equal in duties and in rights.
But, as you said just now, that is a very long story.
Are they equal in nothing here ?" ,

" They are equal in opportunities."

" Ah ! " breathed the Altrurian, " I am glad to hear
that."

I began to feel a little uneasy, and I was not quite
sure that this last assertion of mine would hold water.
Everybody but ourselves had now left the dining
room, and I saw the head waiter eying us impatiently.
I pushed back my chair and said, " I'm sorry to seem
to hurry you, but I should like to show you a very
pretty sunset effect we have here before it is too
dark. When we get back, I want to introduce you
to a few of my friends. Of course, I needn't tell you

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 23

that there is a good deal of curiosity about you, espe-
cially among the ladies."

" Yes, I found that the case in England, largely.
It was the women who cared most to meet me. I
understand that in America society is managed even
more by women than it is in England."

"It's entirely in their hands," I said, with the
satisfaction we all feel in the fact. "We have no
other leisure class. The richest men among us are
generally hard workers ; devotion to business is the
rule ; but as soon as a man reaches the point where
he can afford to pay for domestic service, his wife and
daughters expect to bo released from it to the culti-
vation of their minds and the enjoyment of social
pleasures. It's quite right. That is what makes
them so delightful to foreigners. You must have
heard their praises chanted in England. The English
find our men rather stupid, I believe ; but they think
our women are charming."

" Yes, I was told that the wives of their nobility
were sometimes Americans," said the Altrurian.
" The English think that you regard such marriages
as a great honor, and that they are very gratifying to
your national pride."

24 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Well, I suppose that is so in a measure,'* I con-
fessed. " I imagine that it will not be long before
the English aristocracy derives as largely from Amer-
ican millionaires as from kings* mistresses. Not," I
added virtuously, " that we approve of aristocracy."

"No, I understand that," said the Altrurian. " I
shall hope to get your point of view in this matter
more distinctly by and by. As yet, I'm a little vague
about it."

" I think I can gradually make it clear to you," I
returned.

II.

We left the hotel, and I began to walk my friend
across the meadow toward the lake. I wished him
to see the reflection of the afterglow in its still waters,
with the noble lines of the mountain range that
glassed itself there ; the effect is one of the greatest
charms of that lovely region, the sojourn of the sweet-
est summer in the world, and I am always impatient
to show it to strangers. jg^

We climbed the meadow wall and passed through r
a stretch of woods, to a path leading down to the ^.
shore, and as we loitered along in the tender gloom ^ v
of the forest, the music of the hermit-thrushes rang ^
all round us, like crystal bells, like silver flutes, like >i^

the drip of fountains, like the choiring of still-eyed
cherubim. We stopped from time to time and list-
ened, while the shy birds sang unseen in their covert
of shadows; but we did not speak till we emerged
from the trees and suddenly stood upon the naked
knoll overlooking the lake.

26 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

Then I explained, " The woods used to come down
to the shore here, and we had their mystery and
music to the water's edge ; but last winter the owner
cut the timber off. It looks rather ragged now." I
had to recognize the fact, for I saw the Altrurian
staring about him over the clearing, in a kind of hor-
ror. It was a squalid ruin, a graceless desolation,
which not even the pitying twilight could soften.
The stumps showed their hideous mutilation every-
where ; the brush had been burned, and the fires had
scorched and blackened the lean soil of the hill slope,
and blasted it with sterility. A few weak saplings,
withered by the flames, drooped and straggled about ;
it would be a century before the forces of nature could
repair the waste.

" You say the owner did this," said the Altrurian.
** Who is the owner ? "

" Well, it does seem too bad," I answered eva-
sively. " There has been a good deal of feeling about
it. The neighbors tried to buy him off before he be-
gan the destruction, for they knew the value of the
woods as an attraction to summer-boarders ; the city
cottagers, of course, wanted to save them, and to-
gether they offered for the land pretty nearly as much

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 27

as the timber was worth. But he had got it into his
head that the land here by the lake would sell for
building lots if it was cleared, and he could make
money on that as well as on the trees ; and so they
had to go. Of course, one might say that he was de-
ficient in public spirit, but I don't blame him, alto-
gether."

" No," the Altrurian assented, somewhat to my
surprise, I confess.

I resumed, " There was no one else to look after his
interests, and it was not only his right but his duty
to get the most he could for himself and his own, ac-
cording to his best light. That is what I tell people
when they fall foul of him for his want of public
spirit."

" The trouble seems to be, then, in the system that
obliges each man to be the guardian of his own inter-
ests. Is that what you blame ? " _ A

" No, I consider it a very perfect system. It is
based upon individuality, and we believe that indi-
viduality is the principle that differences civilized
men from savages, from the lower animals, and makes
us a nation instead of a tribe or a herd. There isn't
one of us, no matter how nuich he censured this

28 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

man's want of public spirit, but would resent the
slightest interference with his property rights. The
woods were his ; he had the right to do what he
pleased with his own."

"Do I understand you that, in America, a man
may do what is wrong with his own ? "

"He may do anything with his own."

" To the injury of others ? "

"Well, not in person or property. But he may
hurt them in taste and sentiment as fnuch as he likes.
Can't a man do what he pleases with his own in Al-
truria ? "

" No, he can only do right with his own."

" And if he tries to do wrong, or what the commu-
nity thinks is wrong ? "

" Then the community takes his own from him."
Before I could think of anything to say to this he
went on : " But I wish you would explain to me why
it was left to this man's neighbors to try and get
him to sell his portion of the landscape ? "

" Why, bless my soul ! " I exclaimed, " who else
was there ? You wouldn't have expected to take up
a collection among the summer-boarders ? "

" That wouldn't have been so unreasonable ; but I

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 29

didn't mean that. Was there no provision for such
an exigency in your laws ? Wasn't the state empow-
ered to buy him off at the full value of his timber
and his land ? "

" Certainly not," I replied. " That would be rank
paternalism."

It began to get dark, and I suggested that we had
better be going back to the hotel. The talk seemed
already to have taken us away from all pleasure in
the prospect ; I said, as we found our way through
the rich, balsam-scented twilight of the woods, where
one joy-haunted thrush was still singing, " You know
that in America the law is careful not to meddle with
a man's private affairs, and we don't attempt to legis-
late personal virtue."

" But marriage," he said, " surely you have the in-
stitution of marriage ? "

I was really annoyed at this. I returned sarcas-
tically, "Yes, I am glad to say that there we can
meet your expectation; we have marriage, not only
consecrated by the church, but established, and de-
fended by the state. What has that to do with the
question ? "

"And you consider marriage," he pursued, "the

30 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

citadel of morality, the fountain of all that is pure
and good in your private life, the source of home and
the image of heaven ? "

' " There are some marriages," I said with a touch
of our national humor, " that do not quite fill the bill,
but that is certainly our ideal of marriage."

" Then why do you say that you have not legis-
lated personal virtue in America ? " he asked. " You
have laws, I believe, against theft and murder and
slander and incest and perjury and drunkenness ? "

" Why, certainly."

" Then it appears to me that you have legislated
honesty, regard for human life, regard for character,
abhorence of unnatural vice, good faith and sobriety.
I was told on the train coming up, by a gentleman
who was shocked at the sight of a man beating his
horse, that you even had laws against cruelty to ani-
mals."

"Yes, and I am happy to say that they are en-
forced to such a degree that a man cannot kill a cat
cruelly without being punished for it." The Altru-
rian did not follow up his advantage, and I resolved
not to be outdone in magnanimity. " Come, I will
own that you have the best of me on those points. I

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 31

must say you've trapped me very neatly, too ; I can
enjoy a thing of that kind when it's well done, and I
frankly knock under. But I had in mind something
altogether different w4ien I spoke. I was thinking of
those idealists who want to bind us hand and foot,
and render us the slaves of a state where the most in- , y \
timate relations of life shall be penetrated by legisla- ri"^
tion, and the very hearthstone shall be a tablet of
laws."

" Isn't marriage a rather intimate relation of life ? "
asked the Altrurian. " And I understood that gentle-
man on the train to say that you had laws against
cruelty to children and societies established to see
them enforced. You don't consider such laws an in-
vasion of the home, do you, or a violation of its
immunities ? I imagine," he went on, " that the dif-
ference between your civilization and ours is only
one of degree, after all, and that America and Altruria
are really one at heart."

I thought his compliment a bit hyperbolical, but I
saw that it was honestly meant, and as we Americans
are first of all patriots, and vain for our country be-
fore we are vain for ourselves, I was not proof against
the flattery it conveyed to me civically if not person-
ally.

32 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

We were now drawing near the hotel, and I felt &,
certain glow of pleasure in its gay effect, on the pretty
knoll where it stood. In its artless and accidental
architecture it was not unlike one of our immense
coastwise steamboats. The twilight had thickened to
dusk, and the edifice was brilliantly lighted with elec-
trics, story above story, which streamed into the
gloom around like the lights of saloon and stateroom.
The corner of wood making into the meadow hid the
station; there was no other building in sight; the
hotel seemed riding at anchor on the swell of a placid
sea. I was going to call the Altrurian's attention to
this fanciful resemblance when I remembered that he
had not been in our country long enough to have
seen a Fall River boat, and I made toward the house
without wasting the comparison upon him. But I
treasured it up in my own mind, intending some day
to make a literary use of it.

The guests were sitting in friendly groups about
the piazzas or in rows against the walls, the ladies
with their gossip and the gentlemen with their cigars.
The night had fallen cool after a hot day, and they all
had the effect of having cast off care with the burden
of the week that was past and to be steeping them-

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 33

selves in the innocent and simple enjoyment of the
hour. They were mostly middle-aged married folk,
but some were old enough to have sons and daughters
among the young people who went and came in a
long, wandering promenade of the piazzas, or wove
themselves through the waltz past the open windows
of the great parlor ; the music seemed one with the
light that streamed far out on the lawn flanking the
piazzas. Everyone was well dressed and comfortable
and at peace, and I felt that our hotel was in some
sort a microcbsnT of thergpn liljc.

We involuntarily paused, and I heard the Altrurian
murmur, " Charming, charming ! This is really de-
lightful ! "

" Yes, isn't it ? " I returned, with a glow of pride.
" Our hotel here is a type of the summer hotel every-
where ; it's characteristic in not having anything char-
acteristic about it ; and I rather like the notion of the
people in it being so much like the people in all the
others that you would feel yourself at home wherever
you met such a company in such a house. All over
the country, north and south, wherever you find a
group of hills or a pleasant bit of water or a stretch
of coast, you'll find some such refuge as this for our

34 A TRAVELER FROM AliTRTJRIA.

weary toilers. We began to discover some time ago
that it would not do to cut open the goose that laid
our golden eggs, even if it looked like an eagle, and
kept on perching on our banners just as if nothing
had happened. We discovered that, if we continued
to kill ourselves with hard work, there would be no
Americans pretty soon."

The Altrurian laughed. "How delightfully you
put it ! How quaint ! How picturesque ! Excuse
me, but I can^t help expressing my pleasure in it.
Our own humor is so very different."

" Ah, " I said ; " what is your humor like ? "

" I could hardly tell you, I'm afraid ; I've never
been much of a humorist myself."

Again a cold doubt of something ironical in the
man went through me, but I had no means of verify-
ing it, and so I simply remained silent, waiting for
him to prompt me if he wished to know anything
further about our national transformation from bees
perpetually busy into butterflies occasionally idle.
" And when you had made that discovery ? " he sug-
gested.

" Why, wo'ro nothing if not practical, you know,
and as soon as we made that discovery we stopped

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 35

killing ourselves and invented the summer resort.
There are very few of our business or professional
men, now, who don't take their four or five weeks^
vacation. Their wives go off early in the summer,
and if they go to some resort within three or four
hours of the city, the men leave town Saturday after-
noon and run out, or come up, and spend Sunday
with their families. For thirty-eight hours or so, a
hotel like this is a nest of happy homes."

"That is admirable," said the Aitrurian. "You
are truly a practical people. The ladies come early
in the summer, you say ? "

" Yes, sometimes in the beginning of June."

" What do they come for ? " asked the Aitrurian.

" What for ? Wliy, for rest ! " I retorted with
some little temper.

"But I thought you told me awhile ago that as
soon as a husband could afford it he relieved his wife
and daughters from all household work."

" So he does."

" Then what do the ladies wish to rest from ? "

" From care. It is not work alone that kills.
They are not relieved from household care even when
they are relieved from household work. There is

86 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

nothing so killing as household care. Besides, the
sex seems to be born tired. To be sure, there are
some observers of our life who contend that with the
advance of athletics among our ladies, with boating
and bathing, and lawn-tennis and mountain climbing
and freedom from care, and these long summers of
repose, our women are likely to become as superior to
the men physically as they now are intellectually. It
is all right. We should like to see it happen. It
would be part of the national joke ? "

" Oh, have you a national joke ? " asked the Altru-
rian. " But, of course ! You have so much humor.
I wish you could give me some notion of it."

" Well, it is rather damaging to any joke to explain
it," I replied, " and your only hope of getting at ours
is to live into it. One feature of it is the confusion
of foreigners at the sight of our men's willingness to
subordinate themselves to our women."

" Oh, I don't find that very bewildering," said the
Altrurian. " It seems to me a generous and manly
trait of the American character. I'm proud to say
that it is one of the points at which your civilization
and our own touch. There can be no doubt that the
influence of women in your public affairs must be of

Wo/t^£^

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 37

the greatest advantage to you ; it has been so with us."

I turned and stared at him, but he remained in-
sensible to my astonishment, perhaps because it was
now too dark for him to see it. " Our women have
no influence in public affairs," I said quietly, after a
moment.

" They haven't ? Is it possible ? But didn't I un-
derstand you to imply just now that your women
were better educated than your men ? "

" Well, I suppose that, taking all sorts and condi-
tions among us, the women are as a rule better
schooled, if not better educated."

" Then, apart from the schooling, they are not
more cultivated ? " ^

" In a sense you might say they were. They cer-
tainly go in for a lot of things : art and music, and
Browning and the drama, and foreign travel and
psychology, and political economy and heaven knows
what all. They have more leisure for it ; they have
all the leisure there is, in fact ; our young men have
to go into business. I suppose you may say our
women are more cultivated than our men; yes, I
think there's no questioning that. They are the great
readers among us. We poor devils of authors would

88 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

be badly off if it were not for our women. In fact,
no author could make a reputation among us without
1 them. American literature exists because American
women appreciate it and love it."

" But surely your men read books ? "

"Some of them ; not many, comparatively. You
will often hear a complacent ass of a husband and
father say to an author : ' My wife and daughters
know your books, but I can't find time for anything
but the papers nowadays. I skim them over at
breakfast, or when I'm going in to business on the
train.' He isn't the least ashamed to say that he
reads nothing but the newspapers."

" Then you think that it would be better for him
to read books ? "

" Well, in the presence of four or five thousand
journalists with drawn scalping knives I should not
like to say so. Besides, modesty forbids."

" No, but really," the Altrurian persisted, " you
think that the literature of a book is more carefully
pondered than the literature of a daily newspaper ? "

" I suppose even the four or five thousand journal-
ists with drawn scalping knives would hardly deny
that."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 39

"And it stands to reason, doesn't it, that the
habitual reader of carefully pondered literature ought
to be more thoughtful than the readers of literature
which is not carefully pondered, and which they
merely skim over on their way to business ? "

"I believe we began by assuming the superior
culture of our women, didn't we ? You'll hardly find
an American that isn't proud of it."

" Then," said the Altrurian, " if your women are
generally better schooled than your men, and more
cultivated and more thoughtful, and are relieved of
household work in such great measure, and even of
domestic cares, why have they no part in your public
affairs ? "

I laughed, for I thought I had my friend at last.
"For the best of all possible reasons; they don't
want it."

" Ah, that's no reason," he returned. " Why don't
they want it ? "

" Really," I said, out of all patience, " I think I
must let you ask the ladies themselves," and I turned
and moved again toward the hotel, but the Altrurian
gently detained me.

" Excuse me," he began.

40 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" No, no," I said :

* The feast is set, the guests are met,
May'st hear the merry din.'
Come in and see the young people dance ! "

" Wait," he entreated, " tell me a little more about
the old people first. This digression about the ladies
has been very interesting, but I thought you were go-
ing to speak of the men here. Who are they, or
rather, what are they ? "

" Why, as I said before, they are all business men
and professional men ; people who spend their lives
in studies and counting rooms and offices, and have
come up here for a few weeks or a few days of well-
earned repose. They are of all kinds of occupations :
they are lawyers and doctors and clergymen and mer-
chants and brokers and bankers. There's liardly any
calling you won't find represented among them. As
I was thinking just now, our hotel is a sort of micro-
cosm of the American republic"

" I am most fortunate in finding you here, where I
can avail myself of your intelligence in making my
observations of your life under such advantageous cir
cumstances. It seems to me that with your help I
might pepetrate the fact of American life, possess my

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 41

self of the mystery of your national joke, without stir-
ring beyond the piazza of your hospitable hotel," said
my friend. I doubted it, but one does not lightly put
aside a compliment like that to one's intelligence, and
I said I should be very happy to be of use to him.
He thanked me, and said, " Then, to begin with, I
understand that these gentlemen are here because they
are all overworked."

" Of course. You can have no conception of how
hard our business men and our professional men work.
I suppose there is nothing like it anywhere else in the
world. But, as I said before, we are beginning to
find that we cannot burn the candle at both ends and
have it last long. So we put one end out for a little
while every summer. Still, there are frightful wrecks
of men strewn all along the course of our prosperity,
wrecks of mind and body. Our insane asylums are
full of madmen who have broken under the tremen-
dous strain, and every country in Europe abounds in
our dyspeptics." I was rather proud of this terrible
fact ; there is no doubt but we Americans are proud
of overworking ourselves ; heaven knows why.

The Altrurian murmured, "Awful ! Shocking ! "
but I thought some how he had not really followed me

42 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

very attentively in my celebration of our national vio-
lation of the laws of life and its consequences. " I
am glad," he went on, " that your business men and
professional men are beginning to realize the folly and
wickedness of overwork. Shall I find some of your
other weary workers here, too ? "

"What other weary workers?" I asked in turn, for
I imagined I had gone over pretty much the whole
list.

" Why," said the Altrurian, " your mechanics and
day laborers, your iron moulders and glass blowers,
your miners and farmers, your printers and mill
operatives, your trainmen and quarry hands. Or do
thcyprefer to go to resorts of their own ? "

»^

./•

Ill

It was not easy to make sure of such innocence as
prompted tliis inquiry of my Altrurian friend. The
doubt whether he could really be in earnest was some-
thing that I had already felt ; and it was destined to
beset me, as it did now, again and again. My first
thought was that of course he was trying a bit of
cheap irony on me, a mixture of the feeble sarcasm
and false sentiment that makes us smile when we find /^'
it in the philippics of the industrial agitators. For a
moment I did not know but I had fallen victim to a
walking-delegate on his vacation, who was employing
his summer leisure in going about the country in the
guise of a traveler from Altruria, and foisting himself
upon people who would have had nothing to do with
him in his real character. But in another moment I
perceived that this was impossible. I could not sup-
pose that the friend who had introduced him to me
would be capable of seconding so poor a joke, and be-

^ 4.

44 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

sides I could not imagine why a walking-delegate
should wish to address his clumsy satire to me partic-
ularly. For the present, at least, there was nothing
for it but to deal with this inquiry as if it were made
in good faith, and in the pursuit of useful information.
It struck me as grotesque ; but it would not have been
decent to treat it as if it were so. I was 'obliged to
regard it seriously, and so I decided to shirk it.

" Well,'* I said, "that opens up rather a large field,
which lies somewhat outside of the province of my
own activities. You know, I am a writer of romantic
fiction, and my time is so fully occupied in manipu-
lating the destinies of the good old-fashioned hero
and heroine, and trying always to make them end in
a happy marriage, that I have hardly had a chance to
look much into the lives of agriculturists or artisans ;
and to tell you the truth I don't know what they do
with their leisure. I'm pretty certain, though, you
won't meet any of them in this hotel ; they couldn't
afford it, and I fancy they would find themselves out
of their element among our guests. Wo respect them
thoroughly ; every American does ; and we know that
the prosperity of the country rests with them; we
have a theory that they are politically sovereign, but

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRTJRIA. 45

we see very little of them, and we don't associate with I
them. In fact, our cultivated people have so little
interest in them socially that they don't like to meet
them, evejLin fiction ; they prefer refined and polished
ladies and gentlemen, whom they can have some sym-
pathy with ; and I always go to the upper classes for
my types. It won't do to suppose, though, that we
are indifferent to the working-classes in their place.
Their condition is being studied a good deal just now,
and there are several persons here who will be able to
satisfy your curiosity on the points you have made, I
think. I will introduce you to them."

The Altrurian did not try to detain me this time.
He said he should be very glad indeed to meet my
friends, and I led the way toward a little group at the
corner of the piazza. They were men whom I partic-
ularly liked, for one reason or another; they were
intelligent and open-minded, and they were thoroughly
American. One was a banker ; another was a minis-
^erj there was a^lawyer, and there was a doctor ; there
was a processor of political economy in one of our
colleges ; and there was a retired manufacturer — I do
not know what he used to manufacture : cotton or
iron, or something like that. They all rose politely

C'

^'''

46 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

as I came up with my Altrurian, and I fancied in
them a sensation of expectancy created by the rumor
of his eccentric behavior which must have spread
through the hotel. But they controlled this if they
had it, and I could see, as the light fell upon his face
from a spray of electrics on the nearest pillar, that
sort of liking kindle in theirs which I had felt myself
at first sight of him.

I said, " Gentlemen, I wish to introduce my friend,
Mr. Homos," and then I presented them severally to
him by name. We all sat down, and I explained :
*'Mr. Homos is from Altruria. He is visiting our
country for the first time, and is greatly interested in
the working of our institutions. He has been asking
me some rather hard questions about certain phases
of our civilization ; and the fact is that I have launched
him upon you because I don't feel quite able to cope
with him."

They all laughed civilly at this sally of mine, but
the professor asked, with a sarcasm that I thought I
hardly merited, " What point in our polity can be ob-
scured to the author of * Glove and Gauntlet ' and
* Airs and Graces ' ? "

They all laughed again, not so civilly, I felt, and

A TKAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 4:T

then the banker asked my friend, "Is it long since
you left Altruria ? "

" It seems a great while ago," the Altrurian an-
swered, " but it is really only a few weeks."

" You came by way of England, I suppose ? "

" Yes ; there is no direct line to America," said the
Altrurian.

" That seems rather odd," I ventured, with some
patriotic grudge.

"Oh, the English have direct lines everywhere,"
the banker instructed me.

" The tariff has killed our shipbuilding," said the
professor. No one took up this firebrand, and the
professor added, " Your name is Greek, isn't it, Mr.
Homos?"

" Yes ; we are of one of the early Hellenic fami-
lies," said the Altrurian.

" And do you think," asked the lawyer, who, like
most lawyers, was a lover of romance, and was well
read in legendary lore especially, " that there is any
reason for supposing that Altruria is identical with
the fabled Atlantis ? "

" No, I can't say that I do. We have no traditions

of a submergence of the continent, and there are only
4

48 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

the usual evidences of a glacial epoch which you find

\^ everywhere, to support such a theory. Besides, our

\/ civilization is strictly Christian, and dates back to no

A earlier period than that of the first Christian commune

I after Christ. It is a matter of history with us that

one of these communists> when they were dispersed,

brought the gospel to our continent ; he was cast away

on our eastern coast on his way to Britain."

"Yes, we know that," the minister intervened,
" but it is perfectly astonishing that an island so large
as Altruria should have been lost to the knowledge of
the rest of the world ever since the beginning of our
era. You would hardly think that there was a space
of the ocean's surface a mile square which had not
been traversed by a thousand keels since Columbus
sailed westward."

" No, you wouldn't. And I wish," the doctor sug-
gested in his turn, " that Mr. Homos would tell us
something about his country, instead of asking us
about ours."

" Yes," I coincided, " I'm sure we should all find it
a good deal easier. At least I should ; but I brought
our friend up in the hope that the professor would like
nothing better than to train a battery of hard facts

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 49

upon a defenseless stranger." Since the professor
had given me that little stab, I was rather anxious to
see how he would handle the desire for information
in the Altrurian which I had found so prickly.

This turned the laugh on the professor, and he
pretended to be as curious about Altruria as the rest,
and said he would rather hear of it. But the Altru-
rian said : " I hope you will excuse me. Sometime I
shall be glad to talk of Altruria as long as you like ;
or if you will come to us, I shall be still happier to
show you many things that I couldn't make you un-
derstand at a distance. But I am in America to learn,
not to teach, and I hope you will have patience with
my ignorance. I begin to be afraid that it is so great
as to seem a little incredible. I have fancied in my
friend here," he went on, with a smile toward me, " a
suspicion that I was not entirely single in some of the
inquiries I have made, but that I had some ulterior
motive, some wish to censure or satirize."

" Oh, not at all ! " I protested, for it was not polite
to admit a conjecture so accurate. " We are so well
satisfied with our condition that we have nothing but ^y^ y^**
pity for the darkened mind of the foreigner, though we
believe in it fully : we are used to the English tourist."

50 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

My friends laughed, and the Altrurian continued :
" I am very glad to hear it, for I feel myself at a
peculiar disadvantage among you. I am not only a
foreigner, but I am so alien to you in all the traditions
and habitudes that I find it very diflScult to get upon
common ground with you. Of course I know theo-
retically what you are, but to realize it practically is
another thing. I had read so much about America
and understood so little that I could not rest without
coming to see for myself. Some of the apparent con-
tradictions were so colossal" —

" We have everything on a large scale here," said
the banker, breaking off the ash of his cigar with the
end of his little finger, "and we rather pride ourselves
on the size of our inconsistencies, even. I know
something of the state of things in Altruria, and, to
be frank with you, I will say that it seems to me pre-
posterous. I should say it was impossible, if it were
not an accomplished fact ; but I always feel bound to
recognize the thing done. You have hitched your
wagon to a star and you have made the star go ; there
is never any trouble with wagons, but stars are not
easily broken to harness, and you have managed to
get yours well in hand. As I said, T don't believe in

^y^~ A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 51

you, but I respect you." I thought this charming,
myself; perhaps because it stated my own mind about
Altruria so exactly and in terms so just and generous.

" Pretty good," said the doctor, in a murmur of
satisfaction, at my ear, "for a bloated bond-holder."

" Yes," I whispered back, " I wish I had said it.
What an American way of putting it ! Emerson
would have liked it himself. After all, he was our
prophet."

" He must have thought so from the way we kept
stoning him," said the doctor, with a soft laugh.

" Which of our contradictions," asked the banker,
in the same tone of gentle bonhomie, " has given you
and our friend pause, just now ? "

The Altrurian answered after a moment: "I am
not sure that it is a contradiction, for as yet I have
not ascertained the facts I was seeking. Our friend
was telling me of the great change that had taken
place in regard to work, and the increased leisure
that your professional people are now allowing them-
selves ; and I was asking him where your workingmen
spent their leisure."

He went over the list of those he had specified,
and I hung my head in shame and pity ; it really had

52 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

such an effect of mawkish sentimentality. But my
friends received it in the best possible way. They
did not laugh ; they heard him out, and then they
quietly deferred to the banker, who made answer for
us all :

" Well, I can be almost as brief as the historian of
~ Iceland in his chapter on snakes : those people have
no leisure to spend."

" Except when they go out on a strike, " said the
manufacturer, with a certain grim humor of his own ;
I never heard anything more dramatic than the ac-
count he once gave of the way he broke up a labor-
union. " I have seen a good many of them at leisure
then."

" Yes, " the doctor chimed in, " and in my younger
days, when I necessarily had a good deal of charity-
practice, I used to find them at leisure when they
were * laid off.' It always struck me as such a pretty
euphemism. It seemed to minify the harm of the
thing so. It seemed to take all the hunger and cold
and sickness out of the fact. To be simply ' laid off '
was so different from losing your work and having to
face beggary or starvation ! "

" Those people, " said the professor, " never put

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 53

V

anything by. They are wasteful and improvident,
almost to a man ; and they learn nothing by experi-
ence, though they know as well as we do that it is r'^'^^'^.
simply a question of demand and supply, and that the
day of overproduction is sure to come, when their
work must stop unless the men that give them work
arc willing to lose money."

"And I've seen them lose it, sometimes, rather
than shut down, " the manufacturer remarked ; "lose
it hand over hand, to keep the men at work ; and
then as soon as the tide turned the men would strike
for higher wages. You have no idea of the ingrati-
tude of those people.'* He said this towards the
minister, as if he did not wish to be thought hard ;
and in fact he was a very kindly man.

" Yes, " replied the minister, "that is one of the
most sinister features of the situation. They seem
really to regard their employers as their enemies, x
don't know how it will end."

" I know how it would end if I had my way, "
said the professor. " There wouldn't be any labor-
unions, and there wouldn't be any strikes."

" That is all very well, " said the lawyer, from that
judicial mind which I always liked in him, " as far as

54 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

the strikes are concerned, but I don't understand that
the abolition of the unions would affect the imperson-
al process of laying-off. The law of demand and
supply I respect as much as any one — it's something
like the constitution ; but all the same I should object
extremely to have my income stopped by it every
now and then. I'm probably not so wasteful as a
workingman generally is; still I haven't laid by
enough to make it a matter of indifference to me
whether my income went on or not. Perhaps the
professor has." The professor did not say, and we
all took leave to laugh. The lawyer concluded, "I
don't see how those fellows stand it."

" They don't, all of them, " said the doctor. " Or
their wives and children don't. Some of them die."

" I wonder, " the lawyer pursued, " what has be-
come of the good old American fact that there is
always work for those who are willing to work ? I
notice that wherever five thousand men strike in the
forenoon, there are five thousand men to take their
places in the afternoon — and not men who are turn-
ing their hands to something new, but men who are
used to doing the very thing the strikers have done. "

** That is one of the things that teach the futility

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 55

of strikes, " the professor made haste to interpose, as
if he had not quite liked to appear averse to the in-
terests of the workman ; no one likes to do that.
" If there were anything at all to be hoped from them
it would be another matter."

" Yes, but that isn't the point, quite, " said the
the lawyer,

"By the way, what is the point?" Tasked, with
my humorous lightness,

" Why, I supposed, " said the banker, " it was the
question how the working-classes amused their elegant
leisure. But it seems to be almost anything else."

We all applauded the neat touch, but the Altrurian
eagerly entreated : " No, no ! never mind that, now.
That is a matter of comparatively little interest. I
would so much, rather know something about the
status of the workingman among you."

" Do you mean his political status ? It's that of
every other citizen."

" I don't mean that. I suppose that in America
you have learned, as we have in Altruria, that equal
political rights are only means to an end, and as an
end have no value or reality. I meant the economic
status of the workingman, and his social status."

56 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

I do not know why we were so long girding up our
loins to meet this simple question. I myself could
not have hopefully undertaken to answer it : but the
others were each in their way men of affairs, and
practically acquainted with the facts, except perhaps
the professor; but he had devoted a great deal of
thought to them, and ought to have been qualified to
make some some sort of response. But even he was
silent ; and I had a vague feeling that they were all
somehow reluctant to formulate their knowledge, as
if it were uncomfortable or discreditable. The bank-
er continued to smoke quietly on for a moment ; then
he suddenly threw his cigar away.

"I like to free my mind of cant, " he said, with a
short laugh, "when I can afford it, and I propose to
cast all sorts of American cant out of it, in answering
your question. The economic status of the working-
man among us is essentially the same as that of the
workingman all over the civilized world. You will
find plenty of people here, especially about election
time, to tell you differently, but they will not be tell-
ing you the truth, though a great many of them think
they are. In fact, I suppose most Americans hon-
estly believe because we have a republican form of

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 57

government, and manhood-suffrage, and so on, that
our economic conditions are peculiar, and that our
workingman has a status higher and better than that
of the workingman anywhere else. But he has noth-
ing of the kind. His circumstances are better, and
provisionally his wages are higher, but it is only a
question of years or decades when his circumstances
will be the same and his wages the same as the
European workingman's. There is nothing in our
conditions to prevent this."

"Yes, I understood from our friend here," said
the Altrurian, nodding toward me, "that you had
broken only with the political tradition of Europe, in
your revolution j and he has explained to me that
you do not hold all kinds of labor in equal esteem ;
but"—

" What kind of labor did he say we did hold in
esteem ? " asked the banker.

" Why, I understood him to say that if America
meant anything at all it meant the honor of work, but
that you distinguished and did not honor some kinds
of work so much as others: for instance, domestic
service, or personal attendance of any kind."

The banker laughed again. "Oh, he drew the line

>-

58 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

there, did he ? Well, we all have to draw the line
somewhere. Our friend is a novelist, and I will tell
you in strict confidence that the line Jie has drawn is
imaginary. We don't honor any kind of work any
more than any other people. If a fellow gets up, the
papers make a great ado over his having been a
wood-chopper, or a bobbin-boy, or something of that
kind, but I doubt if the fellow himself likes it ; he
dosen't if he's got any sense. The rest of us feel
that it's infra dig., and hope nobody will find out
that we ever worked with our hands for a living.
I'll go farther," said the banker, with the effect of
whistling prudence down the wind, " and I will
challenge any of you to gainsay me from his own
experience or observation. How does esteem usually
express itself ? When we wish to honor a man, what
do we do ? "

" Ask him to dinner, " said the lawyer.

"Exactly. We offer him some sort of social recog-
nition. Well, as soon as a fellow gets up, if he gets
up high enough, we offer him some sort of social
recognition ; in fact, all sorts ; but upon condition
that he has left off working with his hands for a
living, r We forgive all you please to his past on ac-

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 59

count of the present. But there isn't a workingman I
venture to say, in any city, or town, or even large vil-
lage, in the whole length and breadth of the United ^
States who has any social recognition, if he is still
working at his trade. I don't mean, merely, that he
is excluded from rich and fashionable society, but
from the society of the average educated and culti-
vated people. I'm not saying he is fit for it ; but I
don't care how intelligent and agreeable he might
be — and some of them are astonishingly intelligent,
and so agreeable in their tone of mind, and their
original way of looking at things, that I like nothing
better than to talk with them — all of our invisible
fences are up against him."

The minister said : *'I wonder if that sort of exclu-
siveness is quite natural ? Children seem to feel no /v
sort of social difference among themselves."

" We can hardly go to children for a type of social
order, " the professor suggested.

" True, " the minister meekly admitted. "But
somehow there is a protest in us somewhere against
these arbitrary distinctions ; something that questions
whether they are altogether right. We know that
they must be, and always have been, and always will

60 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

be, and yet — well, I will confess it — I never feel at
peace when I face them." '

" Oh, " said the banker, " if you come to the
question of right and wrong, that is another matter.
I don't say it's right. I'm not discussing that ques-
tion ; though I'm certainly not proposing to level the
fences ; I should be the last to take my own down.
I say simply that you are no more likely to meet a
workingman in American society than you are to
meet a colored man. Now you can judge," he
ended, turning directly to the Altrurian, " how much
we honor labor. And I hope I have indirectly sat-
isfied your curiosity as to the social status of the
workingman among us."

We were all silent. Perhaps the others were
occupied like myself in trying to recall some instance
of a workingman whom they had met in society, and
perhaps we said nothing because we all failed.

The Altrurian spoke at last.

"You have been so very full and explicit that I
feel as if it were almost unseemly to press any
further inquiry ; but I should very much like to know
how your workingmen bear this social exclusion."

" I'm sure I can't say, " returned the banker. " A

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 61

man does not care mucli to get into society until he
has something to eat, and how to get that is always
the first question with the workingman."
" But you wouldn't like it yourself ? "
"No, certainly, I shouldn't like it myself. I
shouldn't complain of not being asked to people's
houses, and the workingmen don't ; you can't do
that ; but I should feel it an incalculable loss. We
may laugh at the emptiness of society, or pretend to
be sick of it, but there is no doubt that society is the
flower of civilization, and to be shut out from it is to
be denied the best privilege of a civilized man. \
There are society-women — -we have all met them —
whose graciousness and refinement of presence are
something of incomparable value ; it is more than a
liberal education to have been admitted to it, but it is
as inaccessible to the workingman as — what shall I
say ? The thing is too grotesquely impossible for
any sort of comparison. Merely to conceive of its
possibility is something that passes a joke ; it is a
kind of offence."

Again we were silent.

" I don't know, " the banker (continued, how the
notion of our social equality originated, but I think

62 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

it has been fostered mainly by the expectation of
foreigners, who argued it from our political
equality. As a matter of fact, it never existed,
except in our poorest and most primitive commun-
ities, in the pioneer days of the West, and among
the gold-hunters of California. It was not dreamt
of in our colonial society, either in Virginia, or
Pennsylvania, or New York, or Massachusetts ; and
the fathers of the republic, who were mostly slave-
holders, were practically as stiffnecked aristocrats
as any people of their day. We have not a polit-
ical aristocracy, that is all ; but there is as abso-
lute a division between the orders of men, and as
little love, in this country as in any country on
the globe. The severance of the man who works
for his living with his hands from the man who
does not work for his living with his hands is so
complete, and apparently so final, that nobody even
imagines anything else, not even in fiction. Or,
how is that?" he asked, turning to me. "Do you
fellows still put the intelligent, high-spirited, hand-
some young artisan, who wins the millionaire's
daughter into your books ? I used sometimes to find
him there."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 63

"You might still find him in the fiction of the
weekly story-papers ; but, " I was obliged to own,
*' he would not go down with my readers. Even in
the story-paper fiction he would leave off working
as soon as he married the millionaire's daughter, and
go to Europe, or he would stay here and become a
social leader, but he would not receive workingmen
in his gilded halls."

The others rewarded my humor with a smile, but
the banker said : "Then I wonder you were uot
ashamed of filling our friend up with that stuff about
our honoring some kinds of labor. It is true that
we don't go about openly and explicitly despising any ,^^ "^^
kind of honest toil — people don't do that anywhere, ^J(5^-^-
now ; but we contemn it in terms quite as unmistak- /s, v/ > \ ^^
able. The workingman acquiesces as completely as
anybody else. He does not remain a workingman a
moment longer than he can help ; and after he gets
up, if he is weak enough to be proud of having been
one it is because he feels that his low origin is a
proof of his prowess in rising to the top against
unusual odds. I don't suppose there is a man in f
the whole civilized world — outside of Altruria, of ^ ;
course — who is proud of working at a trade, except \

5 i

1

X^ the

64 A TRAVELER PROM ALTRURIA.

the shoemaker Tolstoy, and he is a count, and he
does not make very good shoes."

We all laughed again : those shoes of Count
Tolstoy's are always such an infallible joke. The
Altrurian, however, was cocked and primed with an-
other question ; he instantly exploded it. " But are
all the workingmen in America eager to rise above
their condition? Is there none willing to remain
among the mass because the rest could not rise with
him, and from the hope of yet bringing labor to
honor ? "

The banker answered : " I never heard of any. No,
American ideal is not to change the conditions for
but for each to rise above the rest if he can."

" Do you think it is really so bad as that ? " asked
the minister timidly.

The banker answered : ** Bad ? Do you call that
bad ? I thought it was very good. But good or bad,
I don't think you'll find it deniable, if you look into
the facts. There may be workingmen willing to re-
main so for other workii;gmen's sake, but I have never
met any — perhaps because the workingman never
goes into society."

The unfailing question of the Altrurian broke the

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 65

silence which ensued : " Are there many of your
workingmen who are intelligent and agreeable — of
the type you mentioned a moment since ? "

" Perhaps, " said the bankef, "I had better refer
you to one of our friends here, who has had a great
deal more to do with them than I have. He is a
manufacturer and he has had to do with all kinds of
work-people. "

" Yes, for my sins, " the manufacturer assented ;
and he added, " They are often confoundedly intel-
ligent, though I haven't often found them very agree-
able, either in their tone of mind or their original
way of looking at things."

The banker amiably acknowledged his thrust, and
the Altrurian asked, " Ah, they are opposed to your
own ? "

"Well, we have the same trouble here that you
must have heard of in England. As you know now
that the conditions are the same here, you won't be
surprised at the fact."

" But the conditions," the Altrurian pursued ; " do
you expect them always to continue the same ? "

"Well, I don't know," said the manufacturer.
" We can't expect them to change of themselves, and

66 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

I shouldn't know how to change them. It was ex-
pected that the rise of the trusts and the syndicates
would break the unions, but somehow they haven't.
The situation remains the same. The unions are
not cutting one another's throats, now, any more than
we are. The war is on a larger scale — that's all."

" Then let me see," said the Altrurian, " whether I

clearly understand the situation, as regards the work-

ingman in America. He is dependent upon the em-

Iploycr for his chance to earn a living, and he is never

■sure of this. He may be thrown out of work by his

I employer's disfavor or disaster, and his willingness to

work goes for nothing ; there is no public provision

1 of work for him ; there is nothing to keep him from

; want, nor the prospect of anythmg."

" We are all in the same boat," said the professor.
*' But some of us have provisioned ourselves rather
better and can generally weather it through till we
are picked up," the lawyer put in.

" I am always saying the workingman is improvi-
dent," returned the professor.

" There are the charities," the minister suggested.
" But his economical status," the Altrurian pursued,
" is in a stateofperpetual^uncer^^ and to save
J '

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 67

himself in some me^ure he has organized, and so has
constituted himself a danger to the public peace ? "

" A very great danger," said the professor.

" I guess we can manage him," the manufacturer
remarked.

" And socially he is non-existent V^ id

The Altrurian turned with this question to the
banker, who said, " He is certainly not in society."

"Then," said my guest, "if the workingman's
wages are provisionally so much better here than in
Europe, why should they be discontented ? What is
the real cause of th'eir discontent ? "

I have always been suspicious, ih the company of
practical men, of an atmosphere of condescension to
men of my calling, if nothing worse. I fancy they
commonly regard artists of all kinds as a sort of
harmless eccentrics, and that literary people they look
upon as something droll, as weak and soft, as not
quite right. I believed that this particular group, in-
deed, was rather abler to conceive of me as a rational
person than most others, but I knew that if even they
had expected me to be as reasonable as themselves
they would not have been greatly disappointed if I
were not ; and it seemed to me that I had put myself

68 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

wrong with them in imparting to the Altrurian that
romantic impression that we hold labor in honor here.
I had really thought so, but I could not say so now,
and I wished to retrieve myself somehow. I wished
to show that I was a practical man, too, and so I made
answer : " What is the cause of the workingman's dis-
content ? It is very simple : the walking-delegate."

IV.

I SUPPOSE I could not have fairly claimed any great
originality for my notion that the walking-delegate ^

was the cause of the labor troubles : he is regularly ^ jf
assigned as the reason of a strike in the newspapers,
and is reprobated for his evil agency by the editors,
who do not fail to read the workingmen many solemn
lessons, and fervently warn them against him, as soon
as the strike begins to go wrong — as it nearly always
does. I understand from them that the walking-del-
egate is an irresponsible tyrant, who emerges from
the mystery that habitually hides him and from time
to time orders a strike in mere rancor of spirit and
plenitude of power, and then leaves the workingmen
and their families to sufEer the consequences, while

70 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

he goes off somewhere and rolls in the lap of luxury,
careless of the misery he has created. Between his
debauches of vicious idleness and his accesses of bale-
ful activity he is employed in poisoning the mind of
thp workingmen against his real interests and real
friends. This is perfectly easy, because the American
workingmen, though singularly shrewd and sensible
in other respects, is the victim of an unaccountable
obliquity of vision which keeps him from seeing his
real interests and real friends — -or at least from know-
ing them when he sees them.

There could be no doubt, I thought, in the mind of
any reasonable person that the walking-delegate was
the source of the discontent among our proletariat,
and I alleged him with a confidence which met the
approval of the professor, apparently, for he nodded,
as if to say that I had hit the nail on the head this
time ; and the minister seemed to be freshly impressed
with a notion that could not be new to him. The
lawyer and the doctor were silent, as if waiting for
the banker to speak again ; but he was silent, too.
The manufacturer, to my chagrin, broke into a laugh.
" I'm afraid," he said, with a sardonic levity which
surprised me, " you'll have to go a good deal deeper

'X* >

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 71

than the walking-delegate. He's a symptom ; he isn't
the disease. The thing keeps on and on, and it seems
to be always about wages ; but it isn't about wages at
the bottom. Some of those fellows know it and
some of them don't, but the real discontent is with
the whole system, with the nature of things. I had I
a curious revelation on that point the last time I tried
to deal with my men as a union. They were always
bothering me about this and about that, and there
was no end to the bickering. I yielded point after
point, but it didn't make any difference. It seemed
as if the more I gave the more they asked. At last
I made up my mind to try to get at the real inward-
ness of the matter, and I didn't wait for their com-
mittee to come to me — I sent for their leading man,
and said I wanted to have it out with him. He wasn't
a bad fellow, and when I got at him, man to man that*" ^

way, I found he had sense, and he had ideas — it's no ^j T-^
use pretending those fellows are fools ; he had thought
about his side of the question, any way. I said :
* Now what does it all mean ? Do you want the
earth, or don't you ? When is it going to end ? ' I
offered him something to take, but he said he didn't
drink, and we compromised on cigars. * Now when

72 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

is it going to end ? ' said I, and I pressed it home,
and wouldn't let him fight off from the point. * Do
you mean when it is all going to end ? ' said he.
*Yes,' said I, 'all. I'm sick of it. If there's any
way out I'd like to know it.' ' Well,' said he, ' I'll
tell you, if you want to know. It's all going to end
when you get the same amount of money for the
same amount of work as we do.' "

We all laughed uproariously. The thing was de-
liciously comical; and nothing, I thought, attested
the Altrurian's want of humor like his failure to
appreciate this joke. He did not even smile in ask-
ing, " And what did you say ? "

" Well," returned the manufacturer, with cosy en-
joyment, " I asked him if the men would take the
concern and run it themselves." We laughed again ;
this seemed even better than the other joke. " But
he said * No ; ' they would not like to do that. And
then I asked him just what they would like, if they
could have their own way, and he said they would
like to have me run the business, and all share alike.
I asked him what was the sense of that, and why if
I could do something that all of them put together
couldn't do I shouldn't be paid more than all of them

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 73

put together ; and lie said that if a man did his best he
ought to be paid as much as the best man. I asked him
if that was the principle their union was founded on,
and he said ' Yes/ that the very meaning of their union
was the protection of the weak by the strong, and the
equalization of earnings among all who do their best."

We waited for the manufacturer to go on, but he
made a dramatic pause at this point, as if to let it sink
into our minds ; and he did not speak until the Altru-
rian prompted him with the question, " And what did
you finally do ? "

" I saw there was only one way out for me, and I
told the fellow I did not think I could do business
on that principal. We parted friends but the next
Saturday I locked them out, and smashed their union.
They came back, most of them — they had to — but
I've treated with them ever since ' as individuals.' "

" And they're much better off in your hands than
they were in the union," said the professor.

" I don't know about that," said the manufacturer,
" but I'm sure I am."

We laughed with him, all but the minister, whose
mind seemed to have caught upon some other point,
and who sat absently by.

c

74 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" And is it your opinion, from what you know of
the workingmcn generally, that they all have this twist
in their heads ? " the professor asked.

" They have, until they begin to rise. Then they
get rid of it mighty soon. Let a man save something
— enough to get a house of his own, and take a
boarder or two, and perhaps have a little money at
interest — and he sees the matter in another light."

" Do you think he sees it more clearly ? " asked
the minister.

" He sees it differently."

" What do you think ? " the minister pursued, turn-
ing to the lawyer. " You are used to dealing with
questions of justice" —

" Rather more with questions of law, I'm afraid,"
the other returned pleasantly, putting his feet to-
gether before him and looking down at them, in a
way he had. " But still, I have a great interest in
questions of justice, and I confess that I find a cer-
tain wild equity in this principle, which I see nobody
could do business on. I It strikes me as idyllic — it's a
touch of real poetry in the rough-and-tumble prose of
our economic life.'l

He referred this to me as something I might appre-

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 75

ciate in my quality of literary man, and I responded
in my quality of practical man, "There's certainly
more rhyme than reason in it."

He turned again to the minister :

" I suppose the ideal of the Christain state is the
family ? "

" I hope so," said the minister, with the gratitude
that I have seen people of his cloth show when men of
the world conceded premises which the world usually
contests ; it has seemed to me pathetic.

" And if that is the case, why the logic of the pos-
tulate is that the prosperity of the weakest is the
sacred charge and highest happiness of all the
stronger. But the law has not recognized any such
principle, in economics at least, and if the labor unions
are based upon it they are outlaw, so far as any hope
of enforcing it is concerned ; and it is bad for men to
feel themselves outlaw. How is it," the lawyer contin-
ued, turning to the Altrurian, " in your country ? We
can see no issue here, if the first principle of organ-
ized labor antagonizes the first principle of business."

"But I don't understand precisely yet what the
first principle of business is," returned my guest.

" Ah, that raises another interesting question," said

76 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

the lawyer. " Of course every business man solves
the problem practically according to his temperament
and education, and I suppose that on first thoughts
every business man would answer you accordingly.
But perhaps the personal equation is something you
wish to eliminate from the definition."

" Yes, of course."

"Still, I would rather not venture upon it first,"
said the lawyer. " Professor, what should you say
was the first principle of business? "

" Buying in the cheapest market and selling in the
dearest," the professor promptly answered.

" We will pass the parson and the doctor and the
novelist as witnesses of no value. They can't possibly
have any cognizance of the first principle of business ;
their aJlair is to look after the souls and bodies and
fancies of other people. But what should you say it
was ? " he asked the banker.

" I should say it was an enlightened conception of
one's own interests."

" And you ? "

The manufacturer had no hesitation in answering :
" The good of Number One first, last, and all the time.
There may be a difference of opinion about the best

A TRAVELER PROM ALTRURIA. 77

way to get at it ; the long way may be tlie better, or
the short way ; the direct way or the oblique way, or
the purely selfish way, or the partly selfish way ; but
if you ever lose sight of that end you might as well
shut up shop. That seems to be the first law of
nature, as well as the first law of business."

" Ah, we mustn't go to nature for^<5ur morality,"
the minister protested. X'f*^ /M^^^c/^^

" We were not talking of morality," said the man-
ufacturer, " we were talking of business."
* This brought the laugh on the minister, but the
lawyer cut it short : " Well, then, I don't really see
why the trades-unions are not as business-like as the
syndicates in their dealings with all those outside of
themselves. Within themselves they practice an
altruism of the highest order, but it is a tribal altru-
ism ; it is like that which prompts a Sioux to share
his last mouthful with a starving Sioux, and to take
the scalp of a starving Apaehe. How is it with your
trades-unions in Altruria ? " he asked my friend.

" We have no trades-unions in Altruria," he began.

" Happy Altruria ! " cried the professor.

" We had them formerly," the Altrurian went on,
" as you have them now. They claimed, as I suppose

78 A TRAVELEE FEOM ALTRURIA.

yours do, that they were forced into existence by the
necessities of the case ; that without union the work-
ingman was unable to meet the capitalist on anything
like equal terms, or to withstand his encroachments
and oppressions. But to maintain themselves they
had to extinguish industrial liberty among the work-
ingmen themselves, and they had to practice great
cruelties against those who refused to join them or
who rebelled against them."

"They simply destroy them here," said the pro-
fessor.

" Well," said the lawyer, from his judicial mind,
" the great syndicates have no scruples in destroying
a capitalist who won't come into them, or who tries
to go out. They don't club him or stone him, but
they undersell him and freeze him out ; they don't
break his head, but they bankrupt him The princi-
ple is the same."

" Don't interrupt Mr. Homos," the banker en-
treated. " I am very curious to know just how they
got rid of labor unions in Altruria."

" We had syndicates, too, and finally we had the
reductio ad absurdum — we had a federation of labor
unions and a federation of syndicates, that divided

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 79

the nation into two camps. The situation was not
only impossible, but it was insupportably ridiculous."

I ventured to say, " It hasn't become quite so much
of a joke with us yet."

" Isn't it in a fair way to become so ? " asked the
doctor ; and he turned to the lawyer : " What should
you say was the logic of events among us for the last
ten or twenty years ? "

"There's nothing so capricious as the logic of
events. It's like a woman's reasoning — you can't
tell what it's aimed at, or where it's going to fetch
up ; all that you can do is to keep out of the way if
possible. We may come to some such condition of
things as they have in Altruria, where the faith of
the whole nation is pledged to secure every citizen in
the pursuit of happiness ; or we may revert to some
former condition, and the master may again own the
man ; or we may hitch and joggle along indefinitely,
as we are doing now."

" But come, now," said the banker, while he laid a
caressing touch on the Altrurian's shoulder, "you
don't mean to say honestly that everybody works
with his hands in Altruria ? "

" Yes, certainly. We are mindful, as a whole peo-

80 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

pie, of the divine law, * In the sweat of thy brow shalt
thou eat bread.' "

" But the capitalists ? I'm anxious about Number
One, you see."

" We have none."

" I forgot, of course. But the lawyers, the doctors,
the parsons, the novelists ? "

" They all do their share of hand work."

The lawyer said: "That seems to dispose of the
question of the workingman in society. But how
about your minds ? When do you cultivate your
minds? When do the ladies of Altruria cultivate
their minds, if they have to do their own work, as I
suppose they do ? Or is it only the men who work, if
they happen to be the husbands and fathers of the
upper classes?"

The Altrurian seemed to be sensible of the kindly
skepticism which persisted in our reception of his
statements, after all we had read of Altruria. He
smiled indulgently, and said : " You mustn't imagine
that work in Altruria is the same as it is here. As
we all work, the amount that each one need do is very
little, a few hours each day at the most, so that every
man and woman has abundant leisure and perfect

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 81

spirits for the higher pleasures which the education
of their whole youth has fitted them to enjoy. If you
can understand a state of things whore the sciences
and arts and letters are cultivated for their own sake,
and not as a means of livelihood " —

" No," said the lawyer, smiling, " I*m afraid we
can't conceive of that. We consider the pinch of
poverty the highest incentive that a man can have.
If our gifted friend here," he said, indicating me,
" were not kept like a toad under the harrow, with
his nose on the grindstone, and the poorhouse staring
him in the face " —

" For heaven's sake," I cried out, " don't mix your
metaphors so, anyway ! "

" If it were not for that and all the other hardships
that literary men undergo —

' Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail ' —

his novels probably wouldn't be worth reading."

" Ah ! " said the Altrurian, as if he did not quite
follow this joking ; and to tell the truth, I never find
the personal thing in very good taste. "You will
understand, then, how extremely difficult it is for me
to imagine a condition of things like yours — although

82 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

I have it under my very eyes — where the money con-
sideration is the first consideration."

"Oh, excuse me!" urged the minister, "I don't
think that's quite the case."

" I beg your pardon," said the Altrurian, sweetly ;
" you can see how easily I go astray."

"Why, I don't know," the banker interposed,
" that you are so far out in what you say. If you had
said that money was always the first motive, I should
have been inclined to dispute you, too ; but when you
say that money is the first consideration, I think you
are quite right. Unless a man secures his financial
basis for his work, he can't do his work. It's non-
sense to pretend otherwise. So the money consider-
ation is the first consideration. People here have to
live by their work, and to live they must have money.
Of course, we all recognize a difference in the quali-
ties, as well as in the kinds, of work. The work of
the laborer may be roughly defined as the necessity
of his life ; the work of the business man as the
means, and the work of the artist and scientist as the
end. We might refine upon these definitions and
make them closer, but they will serve for illustration
as they are. I don't think there can be any question

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 83

as to w^ich is the highest kind of work ; some truths
are self-evident. He is a fortunate man whose work
is an end, and every business man sees this, and
owns it to himself, at least when he meets some man
of an aesthetic or scientific occupation. He knows
that this luckier fellow has a joy in his work, which he
can never feel in business ; that his success in it can
never be embittered by the thought that it is the
failure of another ; that if he does it well, it is pure
good ; that there cannot be any competition in it —
there can be only a noble emulation, as far as the work
itself is concerned. He can always look up to his
work, for it is something above him ; and a business
man often has to look down upon his business, for it is
often beneath him, unless he is a pretty low fellow."
I listened to all this in surprise ; I knew that the
banker was a cultivated man, a man of university
training, and that he was a reader and a thinker ; but
he had always kept a certain reserve in his talk,
which he now seemed to have thrown aside for the
sake of the Altrurian, or because the subject had a
charm that lured him out of himself. " Well, now,"
he continued, " the question is of the money consid-
eration, which is the first consideration with us all :

84 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

does it, or doesn't it degrade the work, whic^i is the
life, of those among us whose work is the highest ? I
understand that this is the misgiving which troubles
you in view of our conditions ? "

The Altrurian assented, and I thought it a proof of
the banker's innate delicacy that he did not refer the
matter, so far as it concerned the aesthetic life and
work, to me ; I was afraid he was going to do so. But
he courteously proposed to keep the question imper-
sonal, and he went on to consider it himself. " Well,
I don't suppose any one can satisfy you fully. But I
should say that it put such men under a double strain,
and perhaps that is the reason why so many of them
break down in a calling that is certainly far less ex-
hausting than business. On one side, the artist is
kept to the level of the workingman, of the animal,
of the creature whose sole affair is to get something
to eat and somewhere to sleep. This is through his
necessity. On the other side, he is exalted to the
height of beings who have no concern but with the
excellence of their work, which they were born and
divinely authorized tojio. This is through his pur-
pose. Between the two, I should say that he got
mixed, and that his work shows it."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

85

None of the others said anything, and since I had
not been personally appealed to, I felt the freer to
speak. " If you will suppose me to be speaking from
observation rather than experience, ' I began.

" By all means," said the banker, " go on," and the
rest made haste in various forms to yield me the word.

" I should say that such a man certainly got mixed,
but that his work kept itself pure from the money
consideration, as it were, in spite of him. A painter,
or actor, or even a novelist, is glad to get all he can
for his work, and, such is our fallen nature, he does
get all he knows how to get ; but when he has once
fairly passed into his work, he loses himself in it. He
does not think whether it will pay or not, whether it
will be popular or not, but whether he can make it
good or not."

"Well, that is conceivable," said the banker.
" But wouldn't he rather do something he would get
less for, if he could afford it, than the thing he knows
he will get more for ? Doesn't the money considera-
tion influence his choice of subject ? "

" Oddly enough, I don't believe it does," I ans-
wered, after a moment's reflection. " A man makes
his choice once for all when he embraces the aesthetic

/

V

86 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

life, or rather it is made for him ; no other life seems
possible. I know there is a general belief that an ar-
tist does the kind of thing he has made go because it
pays ; but this only shows the prevalence of business
ideals. If he did not love to do the thing he does he
could not do it well, no matter how richly it paid."

" I am glad to hear it," said the banker, and he
added to the Altrurian : "So you see we are not so
bad as one would think. We are illogically better,
in fact."

" Yes," the other assented. " I knew something
of your literature as well as your conditions before I
left home, and I perceived that by some anomaly, the
one was not tainted by the other. It is a miraculous
proof of the divine mission of the poet."

" And the popular novelist," the lawyer whispered
in my ear, but loud enough for the rest to hear, and
they all testified their amusement at my cost.

The Altrurian, with his • weak sense of humor,
passed the joke. " It shows no signs of corruption
from greed, but I can't help thinking that fine as it
is, it might have been much finer if the authors who
produced it had been absolutely freed to their work,
and had never felt the spur of need."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA, 87

"Are they absolutely freed to it in Altruria?"
asked the professor. " I understood you that every-
body had to work for his living in Altruria."

" That is a mistake. Nobody works for his living
in Altruria ; he works for others' living."

" Ah, that is precisely what our workingmen object
to doins: here ! " said the manufacturer. " In that
last interview of mine with the walking-delegate he
had the impudence to ask me why my men should
work for my living as well as their own."

" He couldn't imagine that you were giving them
the work to do — the very means of life," said the
professor.

" Oh, no, that's the last thing those fellows want
to think of."

" Perhaps," the Altrurian suggested, " they might
not have have found it such a hardship to work for
your living if their own had been assured, as it is
with us. If you will excuse my saying it, we should
think it monstrous in Altruria for any man to have
another's means of life in his power ; and in our con-
dition it is hardly imaginable. Do you really have it
in your power to take away a man's opportunity to
earn a living ? "

A

88 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

The manufacturer laughed uneasily. " It is in my
power to take away his life ; but I don't habitually
shoot my fellow men, and I never dismissed a man
yet without good reason."

" Oh, I beg your pardon," said the Altrurian. " I
didn't dream of accusing you of such inhumanity.
But you see our whole system is so very different
that, as I said, it is hard for me to conceive of yours,
and I am very curious to understand its workings.
If you shot your fellowman, as you say, the law would
punish you ; but if for some reason that you decided
to be good you took away his means of living, and he
actually starved to death" —

" Then the law would have nothing to do with it,"
the professor replied for the manufacturer, who did
not seem ready to answer. " But that is not the way
things fall out. The man would be supported in idle-
ness, probably, till he got another job, by his union,
which would take the matter up."

"But I thought that our friend did not employ
union labor," returned the Altrurian.

I found all this very uncomfortable, and tried to
turn the talk back to a point that I felt curious about.
" But in Altruria, if the literary class is not exempt

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 89

from tlic rule of manual labor where do they find time
and strength to write ? "

" Why, you must realize that our manual labor is
never engrossing or exhausting. It is no more than
is necessary to keep the body in health. I do not see '
how you remain well here, you people of sedentary
occupations."

" Oh, we all take some sort of exercise. We walk
several hours a day, or we row, or we ride a bicycle,
or a horse, or we fence."

" But to us," returned the Altrurian, with a grow-
ing frankness, which nothing but the sweetness of his
manner would have excused, "exercise for exercise /
would appear stupid. The barren expenditure of
force that began and ended in itself, and produced
nothing, we should — if you will excuse my saying so
— look upon as childish, if not insane or immoral."

.^'<>^

At this moment, the lady who had hailed me so
gaily from the top of the coach while I stood waiting
for the Altrurian to help the porter with the baggage,
just after the arrival of the train, came up with her
husband to our little group and said to me : "I want
to introduce my husband to you. He adores your
books." She went on much longer to this effect,
while the other men grinned round and her husband
tried to look as if it were all true, and her eyes wan-
dered to the Altrurian, who listened gravely. I knew
perfectly well that she was using her husband's zeal
for my fiction to make me present my friend ; but I
did not mind that, and I introduced him to both of
them. She took possession of him at once and began
walking him off down the piazza, while her husband

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 91

remained with me, and the members of our late con-
ference drifted apart. I was not sorry to have it
broken up for the present; it seemed to me that it
had lasted quite long enough, and I lighted a cigar
with the husband, and we strolled together in the
direction his wife had taken.

He began, apparently in compliment to literatures
in my person, " Yes, I like to have a book where I
can get at it when we're not going out to the theatre,
and I want to quiet my mind down after business. I
don't care much what the book is ; my wife reads to
me till I drop off, and then she finishes the book her-
self and tells me the rest of the story. You see,
business takes it out of you so ! Well, I let my wife J
do most of the reading, anyway. She knows pretty \.
much everything that's going in that line. We^
haven't got any children, and it occupies her mind. A.
She's up to all sorts of things — she's artistic, and
she's musical, and she's dramatic, and she's literary.
Well, I like to have her. Women are funny, anyway."

He was a good-looking, good-natured, average
American of the money-making type ; I believe he
was some sort of a broker, but I do not quite know
what his business was. As we walked up and down

92 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

the piazza, keeping a discreet little distance from the
corner where his wife had run ofi to with her capture,
he said he wished he could get more time with her in
the summer — ^but he supposed I knew what business
was. He was glad she could have the rest, anyway ;
she needed it.

" By the way," he asked, " who is this friend of
yours ? The women are all crazy about him, and it's
been an even thing between my wife and Miss
Groundsel which would fetch him first. But I'll bet
on my wife every time, when it comes to a thing like
that. He's a good looking fellow — some kind of for-
eigner, I believe; pretty eccentric, too, I guess.
Where is Altruria, anyway ? "

I told him, and he said : " Oh, yes. Well, if we
are going to restrict immigration, I suppose we
sha'n't see many more Altrurians, and we'd better
make the most of this one. Heigh ? *'

I do not know why this innocent pleasantry piqued
me to say : " If I understand the Altrurians, my dear
fellow, nothing could induce them to emigrate to
America. As far as I can make out, they would re-
gard it very much as we should regard settling among
the Esquimaux."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 93

"Is that so?" asked my new acquaintance, with
perfect good temper. " Why ? "

"Really, I can't say, and I don't know that I've
explicit authority for my statement."

" They are worse than the English used to be," he
went on. "I didn't know that there were any for-
eigners who looked at us in that light now. I
thought the War settled all that."

I sighed. "There are a good many things that
the war didn't settle so definitely as we've been used
to thinking, I'm afraid. But for that matter, I fancy
an Altrurian would regard the English as a little lower
in the scale of savagery than ourselves even."

"Is that so? Well, that's pretty good on the
English, anyway," said my companion, and he laughed
with an easy satisfaction that I envied him.

" My dear I " his wife called to him from where
she was sitting with the Altrurian, " I wish you would
go for my shawl, I begin to feel the air a little."

" I'll go if you'll tell me where," he said, and he
confided to me, "Never knows where her shawl is,
one-quarter of the time."

" Well, I think I left it in the office somewhere.
You might ask at the desk ; or, perhaps it's in the

94 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

rack by the dining room door — or maybe up in our
room."

"I thought so," said her husband, with another
glance at me, as if it were the greatest fun in the
world, and he started amiably off.

I went and took a chair by the lady and the Altru-
rian, and she began at once : " Oh, I'm so glad
you've come ! I have been trying to enlighten Mr.
Homos about some of the little social peculiarities
among us, that he finds so hard to understand. He
was just now," the lady continued, " wanting to know
why all the natives out here were not invited to go in
and join our young people in the dance, and I've been
trying to tell him that we consider it a great favor to
let them come and take up so much of the piazza and
look in at the windows."

She gave a little laugh of superiority, and twitched
her pretty head in the direction of the young country
girls and country fellows who were thronging the
place that night in rather unusual numbers. They
were well enough looking, and as it was Saturday
night they were in their best. I suppose their dress
could have been criticised; the young fellows were
clothed by the ready-made clothing store, and the

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 95

young girls after their own devices from the fashion-
papers ; but their general effect was good and
their behavior was irreproachable ; they were very ^ I
quiet — ^if anything, too quiet. I They took up a part ^^^^"""^

of the piazza that was yielded them by common
usage, and sat watching the hop inside, not so much ^A.
enviously, I thought, as wistfully ; and for the first ^
time it struck me as odd that they should have no -^^^^
part in the gayety. I had often seen them there be- t>
fore, biit I had never thought it strange they should ^'vt,
be shut out. It had always seemed quite normal, but
now, suddenly, for one baleful moment, it seemed
abnormal. I suppose it was the talk we had been
having about the workingmen in society which caused
me to see the thing as the Altrurian must have seen
it ; but I was, nevertheless, vexed with him for having
asked such a question, after he had been so fully in-
structed upon the point. | It was malicious of him, or
it was stupid. I hardened my heart, and answered :
" You might have told him, for one thing, that they
were not dancing because they had not paid the
piper."

" Then the money consideration enters even into

your social pleasures ? " asked the Altrurian.

7

96 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Very much. Doesn't it with you ? "

He evaded this question, as he evaded all straight-
forward questions concerning his country : *' We have
no money consideration, you know. But do I under-
stand that all your social entertainments are paid for
by the guests ? "

" Oh, no, not so bad as that, quite. There are a
great many that the host pays for. Even here, in a
hotel, the host furnishes the music and the room free
to the guests of the house."

" And none are admitted from the outside ? "

" Oh, yes, people are welcome from all the other
hotels and boarding-houses and the private cottages.
The young men are especially welcome ; there are not
enough young men in the hotel to go round, you see."
In fact, we could see that some of the pretty girls
within were dancing with other girls ; half -grown boys
were dangling from the waists of tall young ladies
and waltzing on tiptoe.

" Isn't that rather droll ? " asked the Altrurian.

*' It's grotesque ! " I said, and I felt ashamed of it.
" But what are you to do ? The young men are hard
at work in the cities, as many as can get work there,
and the rest are out West, growing up with the coun-

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 97

try. There are twenty young girls for every young
man at all the summer-resorts in the East."

" But what would happen if these young farmers —
I suppose they are farmers — were invited in to take
part in the dance ? " asked my friend.

" But that is impossible."

"Why?"

" Really, Mrs. Makely, I think I shall have to give
him back to you ! " I said.

The lady laughed. "I am not sure that I want
him back."

" Oh, yes," the Altrurian entreated, with unwonted
perception of the humor. " I know that I must be
very trying with my questions ; but do not abandon
me to the solitude of my own conjectures. They are
dreadful ! "

" Well, I won't," said the lady, with another laugh.
"And I will try to tell you what would happen if
those farmers or farm hands, or whatever they are,
were asked in. The mammas would be very indig-
nant, and the young ladies would be scared, and
nobody would know what to do, and the dance would
stop."

98 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Then the young ladies prefer to dance with one
another and with little boys" —

" No, they prefer to dance with young men of their
own station ; they would rather not dance at all than
dance with people beneath them. I don't say any-
thing against these natives here ; they are very civil
and decent. But they have not the same social
traditions as the young ladies ; they would be out of
place with them, and they would feel it."

" Yes, I can see that they are not fit to associate
with them," said the Altrurian, with a gleam of com-
mon sense that surprised me, " and that as long as
your present conditions endure, they never can be.
You must excuse the confusion which the difference
between your political ideals and your economic ideals
constantly creates in me. I always think of you
NL politically first, and realize you as a perfect democracy;
then come these other facts, in which I cannot per-
ceive that you differ from the aristocratic countries of
Europe in theory or practice. It is very puzzling.
Am I right in supposing that the effect of your
economy is to establish insuperable inequalities among
you, and to forbid the hope of the brotherhood which
your polity proclaims ? "

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 99

Mrs. Makely looked at me, as if she were helpless
to grapple with his meaning, and for fear of worse, I
thought best to evade it. I said, " I don't believe
that anybody is troubled by those distinctions. We
are used to them, and everybody acquiesces in them,
which is a proof that they are a very good thing." ■

Mrs. Makely now came to my support. " The
Americans are very high-spirited, in every class, and
I don't believe one of those nice farm boys would like
being asked in any better than the young ladies. You
can't imagine how proud some of them are."

" So that they suffer from being excluded as in-
feriors ? "

" Oh, I assure you they don't feel themselves
inferior ! They consider themselves as good as any-
body. There are some very interesting characters
among them. Now, there is a young girl sitting at
the first window, with her profile outlined by the
light, whom I feel it an honor to speak to. That's
her brother, standing there with her — that tall, gaunt
young man with a Roman face ; it's such a common
type here in the mountains. Their father was a sol-
dier, and he distinguished himself so in one of the
last battles that he was promoted. He was badly

100 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

wounded, but he never took a pension ; he just came
back to his farm and worked on till he died. Now
the son has the farm, and he and his sister live there
with their mother. The daughter takes in sewing,
and in that way they manage to make both ends
meet. The girl is really a first-rate semptress, and so
cheap ! I give her a good deal of my work in the
summer, and we are quite friends. She's very fond of
reading ; the mother is an invalid, but she reads aloud
while the daughter sews, and you've no idea how
many books they get through. When she comes for
sewing, I like to talk with her about them ; I always
have her sit down ; it's hard to realize that she isn't a
lady. I'm a good deal criticised, I know, and I sup-
pose I do spoil her a little ; it puts notions into such
people's heads, if you meet them in that way ; they're
pretty free and independent as it is. But when I'm
with Lizzie I forget that there is any difference be-
tween us ; I can't help loving the child. You must
take Mr. Homos to see them, Mr. Twelvemough.
They've got the father's sword hung up over the head
of the mother's bed; it's very touching. But the
poor little place is so bare ! "

Mrs. Makely sighed, and there fell a little pause,

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 101

which she broke with a question she had the effect of
having kept back.

" There is one thing I should like to ask you, too,
Mr. Homos. Is it true that everybody in Altruria
does some kind of manual labor ? "

" Why, certainly," he answered, quite as if he had
been an American.

" Ladies, too ? Or perhaps you have none ! "

I thought this rather offensive, but I could not see
that the Altrurian had taken it ill. " Perhaps we had
better try to understand each other clearly before I
answer that question. You have no titles of nobility
as they have in England" —

" No, indeed ! I hope we have outgrown those
superstitions," said Mrs. Makely, with a republican
fervor that did my heart good. " It is a word that
we apply first of all to the moral qualities of a
person."

" But you said just now that you sometimes forgot
that your semptress was not a lady. Just what did
you mean by that ? "

Mrs. Makely hesitated. "I meant — I suppose I
meant — that she had not the surroundings of a lady ;
the social traditions."

102 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Then it has something to do with social as well
as moral qualities — with ranks and classes ? "

" Classes, yes ; but as you know, we have no ranks
in America." The Altrurian took ofE his hat and
rubbed an imaginable perspiration from his forehead.
He sighed deeply. " It is all very difficult."

"Yes," Mrs. Makely assented, "I suppose it is.
All foreigners find it so. In fact it is something that
you have to live into the notion of ; it can't be ex-
plained."

"Well, then, my dear madam, will you tell me
without further question, what you understand by a
lady, and let me live into the notion of it at my
leisure ? "

" I will do my best," said Mrs. Makely. " But it
would be so much easier to tell you who was or who
was not a lady ! However, your acquaintance is so
limited yet, that I must try to do something in the
abstract and impersonal for you. In the first place,
a lady must be above the sordid anxieties in every
way. She need not be very rich, but she must have
enough, so that she ne^d not be harrassed about
making both ends meet, when she ought to be devot-
ing herself to her social duties. The time is passed

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 103

with US when a lady could look after the dinner, and
perhaps cook part of it herself, and then rush in to
receive her guests, and do the amenities. She must
have a certain kind of house, so that her entourage
won't seem cramped and mean, and she must have
nice frocks, of course, and plenty of them. She
needn't be of the smart set ; that isn't at all necessary;
but she can't afford to be out of the fashion. Of
course she must have a certain training. She must
have cultivated tastes ; she must know about art, and
literature, and music, and all those kind of things,
and though it isn't necessary to go in for anything in
particular, it won't hurt her to have a fad or two.
The nicest kind of fad is charity ; and people go in
for that a great deal. I think sometimes they use it
to work up with, and there are some who use religion
in the same way ; I think it's horrid ; but it's perfectly
safe ; you can't accuse them of doing it. I'm happy to
say, though, that mere church association doesn't count
socially so much as it used to. Charity is a great
deal more insidious. But you see how hard it is to
define a lady. So much has to be left to the nerves,
in all these things ! And then it's changing all the
time ; Europe's coming in, and the old American

104 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

ideals are passing away. Things that people did ten
years ago would be impossible now, or at least ridic-
ulous. You wouldn't be considered vulgar, quite,
but you would certainly be considered a back number,
and that's almost as bad. Really,'* said Mrs. Makely,
" I don't believe I can tell you what a lady is."

We all laughed together at her frank confession.
The Altrurian asked, " But do I understand that one
of her conditions is that she shall have nothing what-
ever to do ? "

" Nothing to do ! " cried Mrs. Makely. " A lady is
busy from morning till night! She always goes to
bed perfectly worn out."

" But with what ? " asked the Altrurian.

"With making herself agreeable and her house
attractive, with going to lunches, and teas, and din-
ners, and concerts, and theatres, and art exhibitions,
and charity meetings, and receptions, and with
writing a thousand and one notes about them, and
accepting and declining, and giving lunches and
dinners, and making calls and receiving them, and I
don't know what all. It's the most hideous slavery !"
Her voice rose into something like a shriek; one
could see that her nerves were going at the mere

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 105

thought of it all. "You don't have a moment to
yourself ; your life isn't your own ! "

" But the lady isn't allowed to do any useful kind
of work?"

•' Work ! Don't you call all that work, and useful ?
I'm sure I envy the cook in my kitchen at times ; I
envy the woman that scrubs my floors. Stop ! Don't
ask why I don't go into my kitchen, or get down on
my knees with the mop ! It isn't possible ! You
simply can't ! Perhaps you could if you were very
grand dame, but if you're anywhere near the line of
necessity, or ever have been, you can't. Besides, if
we did do our own household work, as I understand
your Altrurian ladies do, what would become of the
the servant class ? We should be taking away their
living, and that would be wicked."

"It would certainly be wrong to take away the
living of a fellow-creature," the Altrurian gravely
admitted, " and I see the obstacle in your way."

" It's a mountain," said the lady, with exhaustion
in her voice, but a returning amiability ; his forbear-
ance must have placated her.

" May I ask what the use of your society life is ? "
he ventured, after a moment.

106 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Use ? Why should it have any ? It kills time."
" Then you are shut up to a hideous slavery with-
out use, except to kill time, and you cannot escape
^; I from it without taking away the living of those

^'4 / I dependant on you ? "

^*^ ^ "Yes," I put in, "and that is a difficulty that

\ meets us at every turn. It is something that Matthew
I Arnold urged with great effect in his paper on that
' crank of a Tolstoy. He asked what would become
of the people who need the work, if we served and
waited on ourselves, as Tolstoy preached. The ques-
tion is unanswerable."
/ " That is true ; in your conditions, it is unanswcr-

/ able," said the Altrurian.

"I think," said Mrs. Makely, "that under the
circumstances we do pretty well."

*tC)h, I don't presume to censure you. And if you

believe that your conditions are the best" —

, " We believe them the best in the best of all

^' possible worlds," I said devoutly ; and it struck me

V that if ever we came to have a national church, some

such affirmation as that concerning our economical

K^ conditions ought to be in the confession of faith.

The Altrurian's mind had not followed mine so far.

4

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 107

** And your young girls ? " he asked of Mrs. Makely,
" how is their time occupied ? "

" You mean after they come out in society ? "

" I suppose so."

She seemed to reflect. " I don't know that it is
very differently occupied. Of course, they have their
own amusements ; they have their dances, and little
clubs, and their sewing societies. I suppose that even
an Altrurian would applaud their sewing for the
poor ? " Mrs. Makely asked rather satirically.

" Yes," he answered ; and then he asked, " Isn't it
taking work away from some needy sempstress,
though ? But I suppose you excuse it to the thought-
lessness of youth."

Mrs. I^akely did not say, and he went on : " What
I find it so hard to understand is how you ladies can
endure a life of mere nervous exertion, such as you
have been describing to me. I don't see how you
keep well."

'' We don't keep well," said Mrs. Makely, with the
greatest amusement. " I don't suppose that when you
get above the working classes, till you reach the very
rich, you would find a perfectly well woman in'-'^
America."

108 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Isn't that rather extreme ? " I ventured to ask.

" No," said Mrs. Makely, " it's shamefully moder-
ate," and she seemed to delight in having made out
such a bad case for her sex. You can't stop a woman
of that kind when she gets started ; I had better left
it alone.

" But," said the Altrurian, " if you are forbidden
by motives of humanity from doing any sort of man-
ual labor, which you must leave to those who live by
it, I suppose you take some sort of exercise ? "

*• Well," said Mrs. Makely, shaking her head gaily,
" we prefer to take medicine."

" You must approve of that," I said to the Altru-
rian, " as you consider exercise for its own sake
insane or immoral. But, Mrs. Makely," I entreated,
" you're giving me away at a tremendous rate. I
have just been telling Mr. Homos that you ladies go
in for athletics so much, now, in your summer out-
ings, that there is danger of your becoming physically
as well as intellectually superior to us poor fellows.
Don't take that consolation from me ! "

" I won't, altogether," she said. " I couldn't have
the heart to, after the pretty way you've put it. I
don't call it very athletic, sitting around on hotel

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 109

piazzas all summer long, as nineteen-twentieths of us
do. But I don't deny that there is a Remnant, as ,
Matthew Arnold calls them, who do go in for tennis,,
and boating, and bathing, and tramping and climb-
ing." She paused, and then she concluded gleefully,
" And you ought to see what wrecks they get home
in the fall ! "

The joke was on me ; I could not help laughing,
though I felt rather sheepish before the Altrurian.
Fortunately, he did not pursue the inquiry ; his
curiosity had been given a slant aside from it.

" But your ladies," he asked, " they have the
summer for rest, however they use it. Do they ge»-
erally leave town? I understood Mr. Twelvemough
to say so," he added with a deferential glance at
me.

" Yes, you may say it is the universal custom in
the class that can afford it," said Mrs. Makely. She
proceeded as if she felt a tacit censure in his question.
" It wouldn't be the least use for us to stay and fry
through our summers in the city, simply because our
fathers and brothers had to. Besides, we are worn
out at the end of the season, and they want us to
come away as much as we want to come."

110 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Ah, I have always heard that the Americans are
beautiful in their attitude towards women."

" They are perfect dears," said Mrs. Makely, " and
here comes one of the best of them."

At that moment her husband came up and laid her
shawl across her shoulders. " Wliose character is
that your blasting ?^" he asked, jocosely.

" Where in the world did you find it ? " she asked,
meaning the shawl.

" It was where you left it : on the sofa, in the side
parlor. I had to take my life in my hand, when I
crossed among all those waltzers in there. There
must have been as many as three couples on the floor.
Poor girls ! I pity them, off at these places. The
fellows in town have a good deal better time. They've
got their clubs, and they've got the theatre, and when
the weather gets too much for them, they can run
off down to the shore for the night. The places any-
where within an hour's ride are full of fellows. The
girls don't have to dance with one another there, or
with little boys. Of course, that's all right if they
like it better." He laughed at his wife, and winked
at me, and smoked swiftly, in emphasis of his irony.

" Then the young gentlemen whom the young

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. Ill

ladies here usually meet in society, are all at work in
the cities ? " the Altrurian asked him, rather need-
lessly, as I had already said so.

"Yes, those who are not out West, growing up
with the country, except, of course, the fellows who
have inherited a fortune. They're mostly off on
yachts."

'* But why do your young men go West to grow
up with the country ? " pursued my friend.

" Because the East is grown up. They have got .' ^..
to hustle, and the West is the place to hustle. To C^-^^
make money," added Makely, in response to a puzzled
glance of the Altrurian.

" Sometimes," said his wife, " I almost hate the
name of money."

'" Well, so long as you don't hate the thing,
Peggy."

"Oh, we must have it, I suppose," she sighed.
" They used to say about the girls who grew into old
maids just after the Rebellion that they had lost their
chance in the war for the union. I think quite as i
many lose their chance now in the war for the dollar." ^ i^^^

" Mars hath slain his thousands, but Mammon hath
slain his tens of thousands," I suggested lightly ; we

112 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

all like to recognize the facts, so long as we are not
expected to do anything about them ; then, we deny
them.

" Yes, quite as bad as that," said Mrs. Makely.
^^^ p)j>^\ " Well, my dear, you are expensive, you know,"
said her husband, " and if we want to have you, why
we've got to hustle, first."

" Oh, I don't blame you, you poor things ! There's
nothing to be done about it ; it's just got to go on
and on ; I don't see how it's ever to end."

The Altrurian had been following us with that air
of polite mystification which I had begun to dread in
him. " Then, in your good society you postpone,
and even forego, the happiness of life in the struggle
to be rich?"

" Well, you see," said Makely, " a fellow don't like
to ask a girl to share a home that isn't as nice as the
home she has left."

"Sometimes," his wife put in, rather sadly, "I
think that it's all a mistake, and that we'd be willing
to share the privations of the man we loved."

" Well," said Makely, with a laugh, " we wouldn't
like to risk it."

I laughed with him, but his wife did not, and in the

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 113

silence that ensued there was nothing to prevent the
Altrurian from coming in with another of his questions.
"How far does this state of things extend down-
ward ? ^ Does it include the working-classes, too ? "

" Oh, no ! " we all answered together, and Mrs.
Makely said : " With your Altrurian ideas I suppose
you would naturally sympathize a great deal more
with the lower classes, and. think they had to endure
all the hardships in our system; but if you could
realize how the struggle goes on in the best society,
and how we all have to fight for what we get, or don't
get, you would be disposed to pity our upper classes,
too."

" I am sure I should," said the Altrurian.

Makely remarked, " I used to hear my father say
that slavery was harder on the whites than it was on
the blacks, and that he wanted it done away with for
the sake of the masters."

Makely rather faltered in conclusion, as if he were
not quite satisfied with his remark, and I distinctly
felt a want of proportion in it ; but I did not wish to
say anything. His wife had no reluctance.

" Well, there's no comparison between the two
things, but the struggle certainly doesn't affect the

114 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

working classes as it does us. They go on marrying
and giving in marriage in the old way. They have
nothing to lose, and so they can afford it."

" Blessed am dem what don't expect nuffin ! Oh,
I tell you it's a working-man's country," said Makely,
through his cigar smoke. *' You ought to see them
in town, these summer nights, in the parks and
squares and cheap theatres. Their girls are not off
for their health, anywhere, and their fellows are not
off growing up with the country. Their day's work
is over and they're going in for a good time. And,
then, walk through the streets where they live, and
see them out on the stoops with their wives and child-
ren ! I tell you, it's enough to make a fellow wish he
was poor himself."

"Yes," said Mrs. Makely, "it's astonishing how
strong and well those women keep, with their great
families and their hard work. Sometimes I really
envy them."

" Do you suppose," said the Altrurian, " that they
are aware of the sacrifices which the ladies of the
upper classes make in leaving all the work to them,
and suffering from the nervous debility which seems
to be the outcome of your society life ? '*

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 115

"They have not the remotest idea of it! They
have no conception of what a society woman goes
through with. They think we do nothing. They
envy us, too, and sometimes they're so ungrateful and
indifferent, if you try to help them, or get on terms
with them, that I believe they hate us."

" But that comes from ignorance ' '*

" Yes, though I don't know that they are really any
more ignorant of us than we are of them. It's the
other half on both sides."

" Isn't that a pity, rather ? "

" Of course it's a pity, but what can you do ? You
can't know what people are like unless you live like
them, and then the question is whether the game is
worth the candle. I should like to know how you
manage in Altruria."

"Why, we have solved the problem in the only
way, as you say, that it can be solved. We all live
alike."

" Isn't that a little, just a very trifling little bit
monotonous ? " Mrs. Makely asked, with a smile.
" But there is everything, of course, in being used to
it. To an unregenerate spirit — like mine, for exam-
ple— it seems intolerable."

9^'

116 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" But why ? When you were younger, before you
were married, you all lived at home together. — Or,
perhaps, you were an only child ? "

" Oh, no, indeed ! There were ten of us."
" Then you all lived alike, and shared equally ? "
^ " Yes, but we were a family."

^ \j!\J " We do not conceive of the human race except as

^ '*" a family."

" Now, excuse me, Mr. Homos, that is all nonsense.
You cannot have the family feeling without love, and
it is impossible to love other people. That talk about
the neighbor, and all that, is all well enough" — She
stopped herself, as if she dimly remembered Who be-
gan that talk, and then went on : " Of course I accept
it as a matter of faith, and the spirit of it, nobody
denies that ; but what I mean is, that you must have
frightful quarrels all the time." She tried to look as
if this were where she really meant to bring up, and
he took her on the ground she had chosen.

" Yes, we have quarrels. Hadn't you at home ? "
" We fought like little cats and dogs, at times."
Makely and I burst into a laugh at her magnani-
mous frankness. The Altrurian remained serious.
" But because you lived alike, you knew each other ;

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 117

and so you easily made up your quarrels. It is quite
as simple with us, in our life as a human family."

This notion of a human family seemed to amuse
Mrs. Makely more and more ^ she laughed and laughed
again. " You must excuse me ! " she panted, at last.
" But I cannot imagine it ! No, it is too ludicrous.
Just fancy the jars of an ordinary family multiplied
by the population of a whole continent ! Why, you
must be in a perpetual squabble ! You can't have
any peace of your lives ! It's worse, far worse, than
our way ! "

" But, madam," he began, " you are supposing our
family to be made up of people with all the antago-
nistic interests of your civilization. As a matter of
fact"—

" No, no ! / knoio human nature^ Mr. Homos ! "
She suddenly jumped up and gave him her hand.
" Good night ! " she said, sweetly, and as she drifted
off on her husband's arm, she looked back at us and
nodded in gay triumph.

The Altrurian turned upon me with unabated in-
terest. " And have you no provision in your system
for finally making the lower classes understand the
sufferings and sacrifices of the upper classes in their

118 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

behalf ? Do you expect to do nothing to bring them
together in mutual kindness ?

" Well, not this evening," I said, throwing the end
of my cigar away. " I'm going to bed, aren't you ? "

" Not yet."

" Well, good night. Are you sure you can find
your room ? "

" Oh, yes. Good night."

VI.

I LEFT my guest abruptly, with a feeling of vexation
not very easily definable. His repetition of questions
about questions which society has so often answered,
and always in the same way, was not so bad in him
as it would have been in a person of our civilization ;
he represented a wholly different state of things, the
inversion of our own, and much could be forgiven
him for that reason, just as in Russia much could be
forgiven to an American, if he formulated his curiosity
concerning imperialism from a purely republican ex-
perience. I knew that in Altruria, for instance, the
possession of great gifts, of any kind of" superiority,
involved the sense of obligation to others, and the
wish to identify one's self with the great mass of

120 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

men, rather than the ambition to distinguish one's
self from them ; and that the Altrurians honored their
gifted men in the measure they did this. A man
reared in such a civilization must naturally find it
difficult to get our point of view ; with social inclu-
sion as the ideal, he could with difficulty conceive of
our ideal of social exclusion ; but I think we had all
been very patient with him ; we should have made
short work with an American who had approached us
with the same inquiries. Even from a foreigner, the
citizen of a Republic founded on the notion, elsewhere
exploded ever since Cain, that one is his brother's
keeper, the things he jsked seemed inoffensive only
because they were puerile ; but they certainly were
puerile. I felt that it ought to have been self-evident
to him that when a commonwealth of sixty million
Americans based itself upon the great principle of
self-seeking, self-seeking was the best thing, and
whatever hardship it seemed to work, it must carry
with it unseen blessings in ten-fold measure. If a
few hundred thousand favored Americans enjoyed
the privilege of socially contemning all the rest, it
was as clearly right and just that they should do so,
as that four thousand American millionaires should

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 121

be richer than all the other Americans put together.
Such a status, growing out of our political equality
and our material prosperity must evince a divine
purpose to any one intimate with the designs of pro- 1 <^^^i-^2.*-<--
vidence, and it seemed a kind of impiety to doubt its
perfection. I excused the misgivings, which I could
not help seeing in the Altrurian to his alien traditions,
and I was aware that my friends had done so, too.
But if I could judge from myself he must have left
them all sensible of their effort ; and this was not
pleasant. I could not blink the fact that although I
had openly disagreed with him on every point of
ethics and economics, I was still responsible for him
as a guest. It was as if an English gentleman had
introduced a blatant American democrat into tory
society; or, rather, as if a southerner of the olden
time had harbored a northern abolitionist, and per-
mitted him to inquire into the workings of slavery
among his neighbors. People would tolerate him
as my guest for a time, but there must be an end of
their patience with the tacit enmity of his sentiments,
and the explicit vulgarity of his ideals, and when the
end came, I must be attainted with him.

I did not like the notion of this, and I meant to

122 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

escape it if I could. I confess that I would have
willingly disowned him, as I had already disavowed
his opinions, but there was no way of doing it short
of telling him to go away, and I was not ready to do
that. Something in the man, I do not know what,
mysteriously appealed to me. He was not contempt-
ibly puerile without being lovably childlike, and I
could only make up my mind to be more and more
frank with him, and to try and shield him, as well as
myself, from the effects I dreaded.

I fell asleep planning an excursion further into the
mountains, which should take up the rest of the week
that I expected him to stay with me, and would
keep him from following up his studies of American
life where they would be so injurious to both of
us as they must in our hotel. A knock at my door
roused mc, and I sent a drowsy " Come in ! " towards
it from the bed-clothes without looking that way.

" Good morning ! " came back in the rich, gentle
voice of the Altrurian. I lifted my head with a jerk
from the pillow, and saw him standing against the
closed door, with my shoes in liis hand. " Oh, I am
sorry I waked you ! I thought " —

" Not at all, not at all ! " I said. "It's quite time,

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 123

I dare say. But you oughtn't to have taken the
trouble to bring my shoes in ! "

" I wasn't altogether disinterested in it," he re-
turned. " I wished you to compliment me on them.
Don't you think they are pretty well done, for an
amateur?" He came toward my bed, and turned
them about in his hands, so that they would catch the
light, and smiled down upon me.

" I don't understand," I began.

"Why," he said, " I blacked theni, you know."

*' You blacked them ! "

" Yes," he returned, easily. " I thought I would
go into the baggage-room, after we parted last night,
to look for a piece of mine that had not been taken
to my room, and I found the porter there, with his
wrist bound up. He said he had strained it in hand-
ling a lady's Saratoga — ^lie said a Saratoga was a large
trunk — and I begged him to let me relieve him at
the boots he was blacking. He refused, at first, but
I insisted upon trying my hand at a pair, and then he
let me go on with the men's boots ; he said he could
varnish the ladies' without hurting his wrist. It need-
ed less skill than I supposed, and after I had done a
few pairs he said I could black boots as well as he,"

124 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Did anybody see you ? " I gasped, and I felt a
cold perspiration break out on me.

" No, we had the whole midnight hour to ourselves.
The porter's work with the baggage was all over, and
there was nothing to interrupt the delightful chat we
fell into. He is a very intelligent man, and he told
me all about that custom of feeing which you depre-
cate. He says that the servants hate it as much as
the guests ; they have to take the tips, now, because
the landlords figure on them in the wages, and they
cannot live without them. He is a fine, manly
fellow, and " —

" Mr. Homos," I broke in, with the strength I found
in his assurance that no one had seen him helping the
porter black boots, " I want to speak very seriously
with you, and I hope you will not be hurt if I speak
very plainly about a matter in which I have your
good solely at heart." This was not quite true, and
I winced inwardly a little when he thanked me with
that confounded sincerity of his, which was so much
like irony"; but I went on : " It is my duty to you, as
my guest, to tell you that this thing of doing for
others is not such a simple matter here, as your pecu-
liar training leads you to think. You have been de-

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 125

ceived by a superficial likeness ; but, really, I do not
understand how you could have read all you have
done about us, and not realized before coming here
that America and Altruria are absolutely distinct and
diverse in their actuating principles. They are both
republics, I know ; but America is a republic where
every man is for himself, and you cannot help others
as you do at home ; it is dangerous — it is ridiculous.
You must keep this fact in mind, or you will fall intOi
errors that will be very embarassing to you in your
stay among us, and," I was forced to add " to all
your friends. Now, I certainly hoped, after what I
had said to you, and what my friends had explained
of our civilization, that you would not have done a
thing of this kind. I will see the porter, as soon as
I am up, and ask him not to mention the matter to
any one, but I confess I don't like to take an apolo-
getic tone with him ; your conditions are so alien to
ours that they will seem incredible to him, and he
will think I am stufiing him."

" I don't believe he will think that," said the Altru-
rian, " and I hope you won't find the case so bad as
it seems to you. I am extremely sorry to have done
wrong " —

126 A TKAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Oh, the thing wasn't wrong in itself. It was only
wrong under the circumstances. Abstractly, it is
quite right to help a fellow-being who needs help ; no
one denies that, even in a country where every one is
for himself."

" I am so glad to hear it," said the Altrurlan.
" Then at least, I have not gone radically astray ; and
I do not think you need take the trouble to explain
the Altrurian ideas to the porter. I have done that
already, and they seemed quite conceivable to him ;
he said that poor folks had to act upon them, even
here, more or less, and that if they did not act upon
them, there would be no chance for them at all. He
says they have to help each other, very much as we
do at home, and that it is only the rich folks among
you who are independent. I really don't think you
need speak to him at all, unless you wish ; and I was
very careful to guard my offer of help at the point
where I understood from you and your friends that it
might do harm. I asked him if there was not some
one who would help him out with his bootblacking
for money, because in that case I should be glad to
pay him ; but he said there was no one about who
would take the job ; that he had to agree to black the

A TKAVELER FROM ALTRURTA. 127

boots, or else he would not have got the place of por-
ter, but that all the rest of the help would consider it
a disgrace, and would not help him for love or money.
So it seemed quite safe to offer him my services."

I felt that the matter was almost hopeless, but I
asked, " And what he said, didn't that suggest any-
thing else to you ? "

" How, anything else ? " asked the Altrurian, in his
turn.

" Didn't it occur to you that if none of his fellow
servants were willing to help him black boots, and if
he did it only because he was obliged to, it was hardly
the sort of work for you ? "

" Why, no," said the Altrurian, with absolute sim-
plicity. He must have perceived the despair I fell
into at this answer, for he asked, "Why should I
have minded doing for others what I should have been
willing to do for myself ? "

" There are a great many things we are willing to
do for ourselves that we are not willing to do for
others. But even on that principle, which I think
false and illogical, you could not be justified. A gen-
tleman is not willino; to black his own boots. It is

offensive to his feelinjrs, to his self-respect; it is
9

128 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

something he will not do if he can get anybody else
to do it for him."

" Then, in America," said the Altrurian, " it is not
offensive to the feelings of a gentleman to let another
do for him what he would not do for himself ? "

" Certainly not."

"Ah," he returned, "then we understand some-
thing altogether different by the word gentleman in
Altruria. I see, now, how I have committed a
mistake. I shall be more careful hereafter."

I thought I had better leave the subject, and, " By
the way," I said, " how would you like to take a little
tramp with me to-day, farther up into the mountains ?"

" I should be delighted," said the Altrurian, so
gratefully, that I was ashamed to think why I was
proposing the pleasure to him.

" Well, then, I shall be ready to start as soon as
we have had breakfast. I will join you down stairs
in half an hour."

He left me at this hint, though really I was half
afraid he might stay and offer to lend me a hand at
my toilet, in the expression of his national character.
I found him with Mrs. Makely, when I went down,
and she began, with a parenthetical tribute to the

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 129

beauty of the mountains in the morning light, " Don't
be surprised to see me up at this unnatural hour. I
don't know whether it was the excitement of our talk
last night, or what it was, but my sulfonal wouldn't
act, though I took fifteen grains, and I was up with
the lark, or should have been, if there had been any
lark outside of literature to be up with. However,
this air is so glorious that I don't mind losing a
night's sleep, now and then. I believe that with a
little practice one could get along without any sleep
at all, here ; at least / could. I'm sorry to say, poor
Mr. Makely canH^ apparently. He's making up for
his share of my vigils, and I'm going to breakfast
without him. Do you know, I've done a very bold
thing : I've got the head waiter to give you places at
our table ; I know you'll hate it, Mr. Twelvemough,
because you naturally want to keep Mr. Homos to
yourself, and I don't blame you at all ; but I'm simply
not going to let you, and that's all there is about it."
The pleasure I felt at this announcement was not
unmixed, but I tried to keep Mrs. Makely from think-
ing so, and I was immensely relieved when she found
a chance to say to me in a low voice, " I know just
how you're feeling, Mr. Twelvemough, and I'm going

130 A TRAVELER PROM ALTRURIA.

to help you keep him from doing anything ridiculous,
if I can. I like him, and I think it's a perfect shame
to have people laughing at him. I know we can
manage him between us."

We so far failed, however, that the Altrurian shook
hands with the head waiter, when he pressed open
the wire netting door to let us into the dining-room,
and made a bow to our waitress of the sort one makes
to a lady. But we thought it best to ignore these
little errors of his, and reserve our moral strength for
anything more spectacular. Fortunately we got
through our breakfast with nothing worse than his
jumping up, and stooping to hand the waitress a
spoon she let fall; but this could easily pass for
some attention to Mrs. Makely at a little distance.
There were not many people down to breakfast, yet ;
but I could see that there was a good deal of subdued
sensation among the waitresses, standing with folded
arms behind their tables, and that the head waiter's
handsome face was red with anxiety.

Mrs. Makely asked if we were going to church.
She said she was driving that way and would be glad
to drop us. " I'm not going myself," she explained,
" because I couldn't make anything of the sermon,

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 131

with my head in the state it is, and I'm going to com-
promise on a good action. I want to carry some
books and papers over to Mrs. Camp. Don't you
think that will be quite as acceptable, Mr. Homos ? "

" I should venture to hope it," he said, with a
tolerant seriousness not altogether out of keeping with
her lightness. .

"Who is Mrs. Camp?" I asked, not caring to
commit myself on the question.

" Lizzie's mother. You know I told you about
them last night. I think she must have got through
the books I lent her, and I know Lizzie didn't like to
ask me for more, because she saw me talking with
you and didn't want to interrupt us. Such a nice
girl ! I think the Sunday papers must have come,
and I'll take them over, too ; Mrs. Camp is always so
glad to get them, and she is so delightful when she
gets going about public events. But perhaps you
don't approve of Sunday papers, Mr. Homos."

" I'm sure I don't know, madam. I haven't seen
them yet. You know this is the first Sunday I've
been in America."

"Well, I'm sorry to say you won't see the old
Puritan Sabbath," said Mrs. Makely, with an abrupt

132 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

deflection from the question of the Sunday papers.
" Though you ought to, up in these hills. The only
thing left of it is rye-and-Indian bread, and these
baked beans and fish-balls."

" But they are very good ? "

" Yes, I dare say they are not the worst of it."

She was a woman who tended to levity, and I was
a little afraid she might be going to say something
irreverent, but if she were, she was forestalled by the
Altrurian asking, "Would it be very indiscreet,
madam, if I were to ask you some time to introduce
me to that family ? "

"The Camps?" she returned. "Not at all. I
should be perfectly delighted." The thought seemed
to strike her, and she asked, " Wliy not go with me
this morning, unless you are inflexibly bent on going
to church, you and Mr. Twelvemough ? "

The Altrurian glanced at me, and I said I should
be only too glad, if I could carry some books, so that
I could compromise on a good action, too. " Take
one of your own," she instantly suggested,

" Do you think they wouldn't be too severe upon
it?" I asked.

" Well, Mrs. Camp might," Mrs. Makely consented,

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 133

with a smile. " She goes in for rather serious fiction;
but I think Lizzie would enjoy a good, old-fashioned
love-story, where everybody got married, as they do
in your charming books."

I winced a little, for every one likes to be regarded
seriously, and I did not enjoy being remanded to the
young-girl public ; but I put a bold face on it, and
said, " My good action shall be done in behalf of
Miss Lizzie."

Half an hour later, Mrs. Makely having left word
with the clerk where we were gone, so that her hus-
band need not be alarmed when he got up, we were
striking into the hills on a two seated buckboard, with
one of the best teams of our hotel, and one of the
most taciturn drivers. Mrs. Makely had the Altru-
rian get into the back seat with her, and, after some
attempts to make talk with the driver, I leaned over
and joined in their talk. The Altrurian was greatly
interested, not so much in the landscape — though he
owned its beauty, when we cried out over it from
point to point — but in the human incidents and fea~,
tures. He noticed the cattle in the fields, and the
horses we met on the road, and the taste and comfort
of the buildings, the variety of the crops, and the

134 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

promise of the harvest. I was glad of the respite his
questions gave me from the study of the intimate
character of our civilization, for they were directed
now at these more material facts, and I willingly joined
Mrs. Makely in answering them. ■ We explained that
the finest teams we met were from the different hotels
or boarding-houses, or at least from the farms where
the people took city people to board ; and that certain
shabby equipages belonged to the natives who lived '
solely by cultivating the soil. There was not very
much of the soil cultivated, for the chief crop was
hay, with here and there a patch of potatoes or beans,
and a few acres in sweet-corn. The houses of the na-
tives, when they were for their use only, were no better
than their turnouts ; it was where the city boarder had
found shelter that they were modern and pleasant.
Now and then we came to a deserted homestead, and
I tried to make the Altrurian understand how farming
in New England had yielded to the competition of the
immense agricultural operations of the west. " You
know," I said, " that agriculture is really an operation
out there, as much as coal-mining is in Pennsylvania,
or finance in Wall street ; you have no idea of the vast-
ness of the scale." Perhaps I swelled a little with

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 135

pride in my celebration of the national prosperity, as
it flowed from our western farms of five, and ten, and
twenty thousand acres ; I could not very well help put-
ting on the pedal in these passages. Mrs. Makely
listened almost as eagerly as the Altrurian, for, as a
cultivated American woman, she was necessarily quite
ignorant of her own country, geographically, politically
and historically. " The only people left m the hill
country of New England," I concluded, " are those
who are too old or too lazy to get away. Any youftg
man of energy would be ashamed to stay, unless he
wanted to keep a boarding-house or live on the city
vacationists in summer. If he doesn't, he goes west
and takes up some of the new land, and comes back
in middle-life, and buys a deserted farm to spend his
summers on."

" Dear me ! " said the Altrurian, " Is it so simple
as that ? Then we can hardly wonder at their owners
leaving these worn-out farms; though I suppose it
must be with the pang of exile, sometimes."

" Oh, I fancy there isn't much sentiment involved,''
I answered, lightly.

" Whoa ! " said Mrs. Makely, speaking to the
horses, before she spoke to the driver, as some women

186 A TRAVELER PROM ALTRURIA.

will. He pulled them up, and looked round at her.

" Isn't that Reuben Camp, now, over there by that
house ? " she asked, as if we had been talking of him;
that is another way some women have.

" Yes, ma'am," said the driver.

" Oh, well, then ! " and " Reuben ! " she called to
the young man, who was prowling about the door-
yard of a sad-colored old farmhouse, and peering into
a window here and there. " Come here a moment —
w(5n't you, please ? "

He lifted his head and looked round, and when he
had located the appeal made to him, he came down
the walk to the gate and leaned over it, waiting for
further instructions. I saw that it was the young
man whom we had noticed with the girl Mrs. Makely
called Lizzie, on the hotel piazza, the night before.

"Do you know whether I should find Lizzie at
home, this morning ? "

"Yes, she's there with mother," said the young
fellow, with neither liking nor disliking in his tone.

" Oh, I'm so glad ! " said the lady. " I didn't know
but she might be at church. What in the world has
happened here ? Is there anything unusual going on
inside ? "

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 137

" No, I was just looking to see if it was all right.
The folks wanted I should come round."

" Why, where are they ? "

" Oh, they're gone."

"Gone?"

" Yes ; gone west. They've left the old place, be-
cause they couldn't make a living here, any longer."

"Why, this is quite a case in point," I said.
" Now, Mr. Homos, here is a chance to inform your-
self at first hand about a very interesting fact of our ^J^
civilization;" and I added, in a low voice, to Mrs.
Makely, " Won't you introduce us ? "

" Oh, yes ! Mr. Camp, this is Mr. Twelvemough,
the author — you know his books, of course ; and Mr.
Homos, a gentleman from Altruria."

The young fellow opened the gate he leaned on,
and came out to us. He took no notice of me, but
he seized the Altrurian's hand and wrung it. " I've
heard of yow," he said. " Mrs. Makely, were you go-
ing to our place ? "

" Why, yes."

" So do, then ! Mother would give almost anything
to see Mr. Homos. We've heard of Altruria, over
our way," he added, to our friend. " Mother's been

138 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

reading up all she can about it. She'll want to talk
with you, and she won't give the rest of us much of a
chance, I guess."

" Oh, I shall be glad to see her," said the Altrurian,
" and to tell her everything I can. But won't you
explain to me first something about your deserted
farms here ? It's quite a new thing to me."

" It isn't a new thing to us," said the young fellow,
with a short laugh. " And there isn't much to ex-
plain about it. You'll see them all through New
England. When a man finds he can't get his fu-
neral expenses out of the land, he don't feel like
staying to be buried in it, and he pulls up and goes."

" But people used to get their living expenses
here," I suggested. " Why can't they now ? "

" Well, they didn't use to have western prices to
fight with ; and then the land wasn't wornout so, and
the taxes were not so heavy. How would you like to
pay twenty to thirty dollars on the thousand, and as-
sessed up to the last notch, in the city ? "

" Why, what in the world makes your taxes so
heavy ? "

" Schools and roads. We've got to have schools,
and you city folks want good roads when you come

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 139

here in the summer, don't you? Then the season is
short and sometimes we can't make a crop. The frost
catches the corn in the field, and you have your
trouble for your pains. Potatoes are the only thing
we can count on, except grass, and when everybody
raises potatoes, you know where the price goes."

"Oh, but now, Mr. Camp," said Mrs. Makely, lean-
ing over towards him, and speaking in a cosy and
coaxing tone, as if he must not really keep the truth
from an old friend like her, " isn't it a good deal be-
cause the farmers' daughters want pianos, and the
farmers' sons want buggies? I heard Professor
Lumen saying, the other day, that if the farmers were
willing to work, as they used to work, they could still
get a good living off their farms, and that they gave
up their places because they were too lazy, in many
cases, to farm them properly."

"He'd better not let me hear him saying that,"
said the young fellow, while a hot flush passed over
his face. He added, bitterly, "If he wants to see
how easy it is to make a living up here, he can take
this place and try, for a year or two ; he can get it
cheap. But I guess he wouldn't want it the year
round ; he'd only want it a few months in the sum-

140 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

mer, when he could enjoy the sightliness of it, and
see me working over there on my farm, while he
smoked on his front porch." He turned round and
looked at the old house, in silence a moment. Then,
as he went on, his voice lost its angry ring. " The
folks here bought this place from the Indians, and
they'd been here more than two hundred years. Do
you think they left it because they were too lazy to
run it, or couldn't get pianos and buggies out of it,
or were such fools as not to know whether they were
well off? It was their home; they were born, and
lived and died here. There is the family burying
ground, over there.'*

Neither Mrs, Makely nor myself was ready with a
reply, and we left the word with the Altrurian, who
suggested, " Still, I suppose they will be more pros-
perous in the west, on the new land they take up ? "

The young fellow leaned his arms on the wheel by
which he stood. " What do you mean by taking up
new land ? "

" Why, out of the public domain " —

" There ainH any public domain that's worth hav-

j. ing. All the good land is in the hands of railroads,

^ I and farm syndicates, and speculators ; and if you want

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 141

a farm in the west you've got to buy it ; the east is
the only place where folks give them away, because
they ain't worth keeping. If you haven't got the
ready money, you can buy one on credit, and pay ten
twenty and thirty per cent, interest, and live in a dug-
out on the plains — till your mortgage matures." The
young man took his arms from the wheel and moved
a few steps backward, as he added, " I'll see you over
at the house later."

The driver touched his horses, and we started
briskly off again. But I confess I had quite enough
of his pessimism, and as we drove away I leaned back ^ xL^,
toward the Altrurian, and said, " Now, it is all per-
fect nonsense to pretend that things are at that pass
with us. There are more millionaires in America,
probably, than there are in all the other civilized
countries of the globe, and it is not possible that the
farming population should be in such a hopeless con-
dition. All wealth comes out of the earth, and you
may be sure they get their full share of it."

" I am glad to hear you say so," said the Altrurian,
" What is the meaning of this new party in the west
that seems to have held a convention lately ? I read
something of it in the train yesterday." ^

142 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRTJRIA.

" Oh, that is a lot of crazy Hayseeds, who don't
want to pay back the money they have borrowed, or
who find themselves unable to meet their interest. It
will soon blow over. We are always having these
political flurries. A good crop will make it all right
with them."

" But is it true that they have to pay such rates of
interest as our young friend mentioned ? "

" Well," I said, seeing the thing in the humorous
light, which softens for us Americans so many of the
hardships of others, " I suppose that man likes to
squeeze his brother man, when he gets him in his
grip. That's human nature, you know."
^ " Is it ? " asked the Altrurian.

It seemed to me that he had asked something like
that before when I alleged human nature in defense
of some piece of everyday selfishness. But I thought
best not to notice it, and I went on : " The land is so
rich out there that a farm will often pay for itself
with a single crop."

"Is it possible?" cried the Altrurian. "Then I
suppose it seldom really happens that a mortgage is
foreclosed, in the way our young friend insinuated ? "

" Well, I can't say that exactly," and having ad-

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 143

mitted so much, I did not feel bound to impart a fact
that popped perversely into my mind. I was once
talking with a western money-lender, a very good
sort of fellow, frank and open as the day ; I asked
him whether the farmers generally paid off their
mortages, and he answered me that if the mortgage
was to the value of a fourth of the land, the farmer
might pay it off, but if it were to a half or a third
even, he never paid it, but slaved on and died in his
debts. "You may be sure, however," I concluded,
" that our young friend takes a jaundiced view of the
situation."

" Now, really," said Mrs. Makely, " I must insist
upon dropping this everlasting talk about money. I
think it is perfectly disgusting, and I believe it was
Mr. Makely's account of his speculations that kept me
awake last night. My brain got running on figures
till the dark seemed to be all sown with dollar marks,
like the stars in the milky way. I — ugh ! What in
the world is it ? Oh, you dreadful little things ! "

Mrs. Makely passed swiftly from terror to hysteri-
cal laughter as the driver pulled up short, and a group
of bare-footed children broke in front of his horses,

and scuttled out of the dust into the roadside bushes
10

144 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

like a covey of quails. There seemed to be a dozen
of them, nearly all the same in size, but there turned
out to be only five or six ; or at least no more showed
their gleaming eyes and teeth through the underbrush
in quiet enjoyment of the lady's alarm.

" Don't you know that you might have got killed ?"
she demanded with that severity good women feel for
people who have just escaped with their lives. " How
lovely the dirty little dears are ! " she added, in the
next wave of emotion. One bold fellow of six showed
a half length above the bushes, and she asked, " Don't
you know that you oughn't to play in the road when
there are so many teams passing ? Are all those your
brothers and sisters ? "

He ignored the first question. " One's my cousin."
I pulled out a half-dozen coppers, and held my hand
toward him. " See if there is one for each." They
had no difiiculty in solving the simple mathematical
problem except the smallest girl, who cried for fear
and baffled longing. I tossed the coin to her, and a
little fat dog darted out at her feet and caught it up
in his mouth. ** Oh, good gracious ! " I called out in
my light, humorous way. " Do you suppose he's
going to spend it for candy ? " The little people

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 145

thought that a famous joke, and they laughed with
the gratitude that even small favors inspire. " Bring
your sister here," I said to the boldest boy, and when
he came up with the little woman, I put another
copper into her hand. " Look out that the greedy
dog doesn't get it," I said, and my gaiety met with
fresh applause. " Where do you live ? " I asked with
some vague purpose of showing the Altrurian the
kindliness that exists between our upper and lower
classes.

" Over there," said the boy. I followed the twist
of his head, and glimpsed a wooden cottage on the bor-
der of the forest, so very new that the sheathing had
not yet been covered with clapboards. I stood up in
the buckboard and saw that it was a story and a half
high, and could have had four or five rooms in it. The
bare, curtainless windows were set in the unpainted
frames, but the front door seemed not to be hung
yet. The people meant to winter there, however, for
the sod was banked up against the wooden underpin-
ning ; a stove-pipe stuck out of the roof of a little
wing behind. While I gazed, a young-looking woman
came to the door, as if she had been drawn by our
talk with the children, and then she jumped down

146 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

from the threshhold, which still wanted a doorstep,
and came slowly out to us. The children ran to her
with their coppers, and then followed her back to us.

Mrs. Makely called to her before she reached us,
" I hope you weren't frightened. We didn't drive
over any of them."

" Oh, I wasn't frightened," said the young woman.
" It's a very safe place to bring up children, in the
country, and I never feel uneasy about them."

" Yes, if they are not under the horses' feet," said
Mrs. Makely, mingling instruction and amusement
very judiciously in her reply. " Are they all yours ?"

" Only five," said the mother, and she pointed to
the alien in her flock. " He's my sisters' s. She lives
just below here." Her children had grouped them-
selves about her, and she kept passing her hands
caressingly over their little heads as she talked. " My
sister has nine children, but she has the rest at church
with her today."

" You don't speak like an American," Mrs. Makely
suggested.

"No, we're English. Our husbands work in the
quarry. That's my little palace." The woman
nodded her head toward the cottage.

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 147

"It*s going to be very nice," said Mrs. Makcly,
with an evident perception of her pride in it.

•' Yes, if we ever get money to finish it. Thank
you for the children ! "

" Oh, it was this gentleman." Mrs. Makely indi-
cated me, and I bore the merit of my good action as
modestly as I could.

" Then, thank yow, sir," said the young woman, and
she asked Mrs. Makely, " You're not living about
here, ma'am ? "

" Oh, no, we're staying at the hotel."

" At the hotel ! It must be very dear, there."

" Yes, it is expensive," said Mrs. Makely, with a
note of that satisfaction in her voice which we all
feel in spending a great deal of money.

" But I suppose you can afford it," said the woman,
whose eye was running hungrily over Mrs. Makely's
pretty costume. " Some are poor, and some are rich.
That's the way the world has to be made up, isn't it ?"

" Yes," said Mrs. Makely, very dryly, and the talk
languished from this point, so that the driver felt
warranted in starting up his horses. When we had
driven beyond earshot she said, " I knew she was not
an American, as soon as she spoke, by her accent, and

148 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

then those foreigners have no self -respect. That was
a pretty bold bid for a contribution to finish up her
* little palace ! ' I'm glad you didn't give her any-
thing, Mr. Twelvemough. I was afraid your sympa
thies had been wrought upon."

" Oh, not at all ! " I answered. " I saw the mischief
I had done with the children."

The Altrurian, who had not asked anything for a
long time, but had listened with eager interest to all
that passed, now came up smiling with his question :
" Will you kindly tell me what harm would have been
done by offering the woman a little money to help
finish up her cottage ? "

I did not allow Mrs. Makely to answer, I was so ea-
ger to air my political economy. " The very greatest
harm. It would have pauperized her. You have no
idea how quickly they give way to the poison of that
sort of thing. As soon as they get any sort of help
they expect more ; they count upon it, and they begin
to live upon it. The sight of those coppers which I
gave her children — more out of joke than charity —
demoralized the woman. She took us for rich people,
and wanted us to build her a house. You have to
guard against every approach to a thing of that sort."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 149

"I don't believe," said Mrs. Makely, "that an
American would have hinted, as she did."

" No, an American would not have done that, I'm
thankful to say. They take fees, but they don't ask
charity, yet." We went on to exult in the noble in-
dependence of the American character in all classes,
at some length. We talked at the Altrurian, but he
did not seem to hear us. At last, he asked with a
famt sigh, " Then, in your conditions, a kindly im-
pulse to aid one who needs your help, is something to
be guarded against as possibly pernicious ? "

" Exactly," I said. " And now you see what diffi-
culties beset us in dealing with the problem of poverty.
We cannot let people suffer, for that would be cruel ;
and we cannot relieve their need without pauperizing
them."

" I see," he answered. " It is a terrible quandary."

" I wish," said Mrs. Makely, " that you would tell
us just how you manage with the poor in Altruria."

" We have none," he replied.

" But the comparatively poor — you have some peo-
ple who are richer than others ? "

" No. We should regard that as the worst in-
civism."

150 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" What is incivism ? "

I interpreted, " Bad citizenship."

" Well then, if you will excuse me, Mr. Homos,"
she said, " I think that is simply impossible. There
must be rich and there must be poor. There always
have been, and there always will be. That woman
said it as well as anybody. Didn't Christ himself
say, * The poor ye have always with you ' 2 "

VII

The Altrurian looked at Mrs. Makely with an
amazement visibly heightened by the air of compla-
cency she put on after delivering this poser : " Do you
really think Christ meant that you ought always to
have the poor with you ? " he asked.

" Why, of course ! " she answered triumphantly.
" How else are the sympathies of the rich to be culti-
vated ? The poverty of some and the wealth of
others, isn't that what forms the great tie of human
brotherhood? If we were all comfortable, or all
shared alike, there could not be anything like charity,
and Paul said ' the greatest of these is charity. ' I
believe it's ' love ' in the new version, but it comes to
the same thing."

The Altrurian gave a kind of gasp and then lapsed

152 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA

into a silence that lasted until we came in sight of
the Camp farmhouse. It stood on the crest of a road-
side upland, and looked down the beautiful valley,
bathed in Sabbath sunlight, and away to the ranges
of hills, so far that it was hard to say whether it was
sun or shadow that dimmed their distance. Decidedly,
the place was what the country people call sightly.
The old house, once painted a Brandon red, crouched
low to the ground, with its lean-to in the rear, and its
flat-arched wood-sheds and wagon-houses, stretching
away at the side to the barn, and covering the
approach to it with an unbroken roof. There were
flowers in the beds along the under-pinning of the
house, which stood close to the street, and on one
side of the door was a clump of Spanish willow ; an
old-fashioned June rose climbed over it from the
other. An aged dog got stiffly to his feet from the
threshold stone, and whimpered, as our buckboard
drew up ; the poultry picking about the path and
among the chips, lazily made way for us, and as our
wheels ceased to crunch upon the gravel, we heard
hasty steps, and Reuben Camp^me round the corner
of the house in time to give Mrs. Makely his hand,
and help her spring to the ground, which she did very

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 153

lightly ; her remarkable mind had kept her body in a
sort of sympathetic activity, and at thirty-five she had
the gracile ease and self-command of a girl.

"Ah, Reuben," she sighed, permitting herself to
call him by his first name, with the emotion which
expressed itself more definitely in the words that fol-
lowed, " how I envy you all this dear old, home-like
place ! I never come here without thinking of my
grandfather's farm in Massachusetts, where I used to
go every summer when I was a little girl. If I had a
place like this, I should never leave it."

" Well, Mrs. Makely," said young Camp, " you can
have this place cheap, if you really want it. Or
almost any other place in the neighborhood."

" Don't say such a thing ! " she returned. " It
makes one feel as if the foundations of the great deep
were giving way. I don't know what that means,
exactly, but I suppose it's equivalent to mislaying
George's hatchet, and going back on the Declaration
generally ; and I don't like to hear you talk so."

Camp seemed to have lost his bitter mood, and he
answered pleasantly, " The Declaration is all right, as
far as it goes, but it don't help us to compete with
the western farm operations."

154 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Why, you believe every one was born free and
equal, don't you ? " Mrs. Makely asked.
" Oh, yes, I believe that; but "—
" Then why do you object to free and equal com-
petition ? "

The young fellow laughed, and said, as he opened
the door for us : " Walk right into the parlor, please.
Mother will be ready for you in a minute." He
added, " I guess she's putting on her best cap, for
you, Mr. Homos. It's a great event for her, your
* coming here. It is for all of us. We're glad to
have you."

" And I'm glad to be here," said the Altrurian, as
simply as the other. He looked about the best room
of a farm-house that had never adapted itself to the
V,S tastes or needs of the city boarder, and was as stiffly
J/N. repellant in its upholstery, and as severe in its deco-
X.^ju*^^"^ ration as haircloth chairs and dark brown wall-paper
-^ JL\S^ of a trellis-pattern, with drab roses, could make it.
The windows were shut tight, and our host did not
offer to open them. A fly or two crossed the door-
way into the hall, but made no attempt to penetrate
the interior, where we sat in an obscurity that left the
high-hung family photographs on the walls vague and

Vf¥

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 155

uncertain. I made a mental note of it as a place
where it would be very cliaractistic to have a rustic
funeral take place ; and I was pleased to have Mrs.
Makely drop into a sort of mortuary murmur, as she
said : "I hope your mother is as well as usual, this
morning ? " I perceived that this murmur was pro-
duced by the sepulchral influence of the room.

" Oh, yes," said Camp, and at that moment a door
opened from the room across the hall, and his sister
seemed to bring in some of the light from it to us,
where we sat. She shook hands with Mrs. Makely,
who introduced me to her, and then presented the
Altrurian. She bowed very civilly to me, but with a
touch of severity, such as country people find neces-
sary for the assertion of their self-respect with strang-
ers. I thought it very pretty, and instantly saw that
I could work it into some picture of character ; and I
was not at all sorry that she made a difference in
favor of the Altrurian.

" Mother will be so glad to see you," she said to
him, and, " Won't you come right in ? " she added to
us all.

We followed her and found ourselves in a large,
low, sunny room on the southeast corner of the house,

156 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

which had no doubt once been the living room, but
which was now given up to the bed-ridden invalid ; a
door opened into the kitchen behind, where the table
was already laid for the midday meal, with the plates
turned down in the country fashion, and some netting
drawn over the dishes to keep the flies away.

Mrs. Makely bustled up to the bedside with her
energetic, patronizing cheerfulness. " Ah, Mrs.
Camp, I am glad to see you looking so well this
morning. I've been meaning to run over for several
days past, but I couldn't find a moment till this morn-
ing, and I knew you didn't object to Sunday visits."
She took the invalid's hand in hers, and with the air
of showing how little she felt any inequality between
them, she leaned over and kissed her, where Mrs.
Camp sat propped against her pillows. She had a
large, nobly-moulded face of rather masculine contour,
and at the same time the most motherly look in the
world. Mrs. Makely bubbled and babbled on, and
every one waited patiently till she had done, and
turned and said, toward the Altrurian, " I have ven-
tured to bring my friend, Mr. Ilomos, with me. He
is from Altruria." Then she turned to me, and said,
"Mr. Twelvemough, you know already through his

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 15*7

delightful books ; " but although she paid me this
perfunctory compliment, it was perfectly apparent to
me that in the esteem of this disingenuous woman the
distinguished stranger was a far more important per-
son than the distinguished author. Whether Mrs.
Camp read my perception of this fact in my face or
not, I cannot say, but she was evidently determined
that I should not feel a difference in her. She held
out her hand to me first, and said that I never could
know how many heavy hours I had helped to lighten
for her, and then she turned to the Altrurian, and
took his hand. " Oh ! " she said, with a long, deep,
drawn sigh, as if that were the supreme moment of
her life. " And are you really from Altruria ? It
seems too good to be true ! " Her devout look and
her earnest tone gave the commonplace words a quality
that did not inhere in them, but Mrs. Makely took
them on their surface.

"Yes, doesn't it?" she made haste to interpose,
before the Altrurian could say anything. " That is
just the way we all feel about it, Mrs. Camp. I
assure you, if it were not for the accounts in the
papers, and the talk about it everywhere, I couldn't ..'u'^"
believe there was any such place as Altruria; and if it »^ ^^"

^1

158 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

were not for Mr. Twelvemough here — who has to keep
all his inventions for his novels, as a mere matter of
business routine, — I might really suspect him and Mr.
Homos of — well, ivorkiny us, as my husband calls it."

The Altrurian smiled politely, but vaguely, as if he
had not quite caught her meaning, and I made answer
for both : " I am sure, Mrs. Makely, if you could un-
derstand my peculiar state of mind about Mr. Homos,
you would never believe that I was in collusion with
him. T find him quite as incredible as you do. There
are moments when he seems so entirely subjective
*j with me, that I feel as if he were no more definite or
tangible than a bad conscience."

" Exactly ! " said Mrs. Makely, and she laughed out
her delight in my illustration.

The Altrurian must have perceived that we were
joking, though the Camps all remained soberly silent.
" I hope it isift so bad as that," he said, " though I
have noticed that I seem to affect you all with a kind
of misgiving. I don't know just what it is ; but if I
could remove it, I should be very glad to do so."

Mrs. Makely very promptly seized her chance :
" Well, then, in the first place, my husband and I
were talking it over last night, after we left you, and

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 159

that was one of the things that kept us awake ; it
turned into money afterward. It isn't so much that a
whole continent, as big as Australia, remained undis-
coved till within such a very few years, as it is the
condition of things among you : this sort of all living
for one another, and not each one for himself. My
husband says that is simply moonshine ; such a thing
never was and never can be ; it is opposed to human
nature, and would take away incentive, and all motive
for exertion and advancement and enterprise. I don't
know what he didn't say against it ; but one thing :
he says it's perfectly un-American." The Altrurian re-
mained silent, gravely smiling, and Mrs. Makely added
with her most engaging little manner : "I hope you
won't feel hurt, personally or patriotically, by what
I've repeated to you. I know my husband is awfully
Philistine, though he is such a good fellow, and I
don't, by any means, agree with him on all those
points ; but I would like to know what you think of
them. The trouble is, Mrs. Camp," she said, turning
to the invalid, " that Mr. Homos is so dreadfully re-
ticent about his own country, and I am so curious to
hear of it at first hands, that I consider it justifiable
to use any means to make him open up about it."

V

160 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" There is no offense," the Altrurian answered for
himself, " in what Mr. Makely says, though, from the
Altrurian point of view, there is a good deal of error.
Does it seem so strange to you," he asked, addressing
himself to Mrs. Camp, *' that people should found a
civilization on the idea of living for one another, in-
stead of each for himself ? "

" No, indeed ! " she answered. " Poor people have
always had to live that way, or they could not have
lived at all."

" That was what I understood your porter to say
last night," said the Altrurian to me. He added, to
the company generally: "I suppose that even in
America there are more poor people than there are
rich people ? "

"Well, I don't know about that," I said. " I sup-
pose there are more people independently rich than
there are people independently poor."

" We will let that formulation of it stand. If it
is true, I do not see why the Altrurian system should
be considered so very un-American. Theiv as to
^ whether there is or ever was really a practic^Maltruism,
a civic expression of it, I think it cannot beUeSwd
that among the first Christians^hose who immediately

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 161

followed Christ, and might be supposed to be directly
influenced by his life, there was an altruism practiced
as radical as that which we have organized into a
national polity and a working economy in Altruria."

" Ah, but you know," said Mrs. Makely, with the
air of advancing a point not to be put aside, " they
had to drop that. It was a dead failure. They found
that they couldn't make it go at all, among cultivated
people, and that, if Christianity was to advance, they
would have to give up all that crankish kind of idol-
atry of the mere letter. At any rate," she went on,
with the satisfaction we all feel in getting an opponent
into close quarters, " you must confess that there is a
much greater play of individuality here."

Before the Altrurian could reply, young Camp said:
" If you want to see American individuality, the real,
simon-pure article, you ought to go down to one ©f
our big factory towns, and look at the mill-hands
coming home in droves after a day's work, young
girls and old women, boys and men, all fluffed over
with cotton, and so dead-tired that they can hardly
walk. They come shambling along with all the in-
dividuality of a flock of sheep."

" Some," said Mrs. Makely, heroically, as if she

162 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

were one of these, " must be sacrificed. Of course,
some are not so individual as others. A great deal
depends upon temperament."

" A great deal more depends upon capital," said
Camp, with an offensive laugh. " If you have capital
in America, you can have individuality ; if you haven't,
you can't."

His sister, who had not taken part in the talk be-
fore, said demurely : "It seems to me you've got a
good deal of individuality, Reub, and you haven't got
a great deal of capital, either," and the two young
people laughed together.

Mrs. Makely was one of those fatuous women whose
eagerness to make a point, excludes the consideration
even of their own advantage. " I'm sure," she said, as
if speaking for the upper classes, " we haven't got any
individualty at all. We are as like as so many peas,
or pins. In fact, you have to be so, in society. If you
keep asserting your own individuality too much, people
avoid you. It's very vulgar, and the greatest bore."

"Then you don't find individuality so desirable,
after all," said the Altrurian.

" I perfectly detest it ! " cried the lady, and evi-
dently she had not the least notion where she was in

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 163

the argument. " For my part, I'm never happy,
except when I've forgotten myself and the whole
individual bother."

Her declaration seemed somehow to close the in-
cident, and we were all silent a moment, which I
employed in looking about the room, and taking in
with my literary sense, the simplicity and even bare-
ness of its furnishing. There was the bed where the
invalid lay, and near the head, a table with a pile of
books and a kerosene lamp on it, and I decided that
she was a good deal wakeful, and that she read by
that lamp, when she could not sleep at night. Then
there were the hard chairs we sat on, and some home-
made hooked rugs, in rounds and ovals, scattered
about the clean floor; there was a small melodeon
pushed against the wall ; the windows had paper
shades, and I recalled that I had not seen any blinds
on the outside of the house. Over the head of the
bed hung a cavalryman's sword, with its belt; the
sword that Mrs. Makely had spoken of. It struck me
as a room where a great many things might have hap-
pened, and I said : " You can't think, Mrs. Camp, how
glad I am to see the inside of your house. It seems
to me so typical."

164 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

A pleased intelligence showed itself in her face,
and she answered : " Yes, it is a real old-fashioned
farmhouse. We have never taken boarders and so
we have kept it as it was built, pretty much, and only
made such changes m it as we needed or wanted for
ourselves."

" It's a pity, " I went on, following up what I
thought a fortunate, lead, " that we city people see so
little of the farming life, when we come into the
country. I have been here now for several seasons,
and this is the first time I have been inside a farmer's
house."

" Is it possible ! " cried the Altrurian, with an air
of utter astonishment; and when I found the fact
appeared so singular to him, I began to be rather
proud of its singularity.

" Yes, I suppose that most city people come and
go, year after year, in the country, and never make
any sort of acquaintance with the people who live
there the year round. We keep to ourselves in the
hotels, or if we go out at all, it is to make a call upon
some city cottager, and so we do not get out of the
vicious circle of oui* own over- intimacy with ourselves,
and our ignorance of others."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 165

" And you regard that as a great misfortune ? "
asked the Altrurian.

" Why, it's inevitable. There is nothing to bring
us together, unless it's some happy accident, like the
present. But we don't have a traveler from Altruria
to exploit every day, and so we have no business to
come into people's houses."

" You would have been welcome in ours, long ago,
Mr. Twelvemough," said Mrs. Camp.

" But, excuse me ! " said the Altrurian. " What
you say really seems dreadful to me. Why, it is as
if you were not the same race, or kind of men ! "

" Yes," I answered. " It has sometimes seemed
to me as if our big hotel there were a ship, anchored
off some strange coast. The inhabitants come out
with supplies, and carry on their barter with the ship's
steward, and we sometimes see them over the side,
but we never speak to them, or have anything to do
with them. We sail away at the close of the season,
and that is the end of it till next summer."

The Altrurian turned to Mrs. Camp. " And how
do you look at it ? How does it seem to you ? "

"I don't believe we have thought about it very
much ; but now that Mr. Twelvemough has spoken of

166 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

it, I can see that it does look that way. And it seems
very strange, doesn't it, for we are all the same people,
and have the same language,- and religion and country
— ^the country that my husband fought for, and I sup-
pose I may say, died for ; he was never the same man
after the war. It does appear as if we had some in-
terests in common, and might find it out if we ever
came together."

" It's a great advantage, the city people going into
the country so much as they do now," said Mrs.
Makely. " They bring five million dollars into the
state of New Hampshire, alone, every summer."

She looked round for the general approval which
this fact merited, and young Camp said : " And it
shows how worthless the natives are, that they can't
make both ends meet, with all that money, but have
to give up their farms and go west, after all. I sup-
pose you think it comes from wanting buggies and
pianos."

" Well, it certainly comes from something," said
Mrs. Makely, with the courage of her convictions.

She was evidently not going to be put down by that
sour young fellow, and I was glad of it, though I
must say I thought the thing she left to rankle in his

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 167

mind from our former meeting had not been said in
very good taste. I thought, too, that she would not
fare best in any encounter of wits with him, and I
rather trembled for the result. I said, to relieve the
strained situation, " I wish there was some way of our
knowing each other better. I'm sure there's a great
deal of good will on both sides."

" No, there isn't," said Camp, " or at least I can
answer for our side, that there isn't. You come into
the country to get as much for your money as you can,
and we mean to let you have as little as we can.
That's the whole story, and if Mr. Homos believes
anything diJfferent, he's very much mistaken."

" I hadn't formed any conclusion in regard to the
matter, which is quite new to me," said the Altrurian,
mildly. " But why is there no basis of mutual kind-
ness between you ? "

" Because it's like everything else with us, it's a
question of supply and demand, and there is no room /
for any mutual kindness in a question of that kind.
Even if there were, there is another thing that would
kill it. The summer folks, as we call them, look down
on the natives, as they call us, and we know it."

" Now, Mr. Camp, I am sure that you cannot say /

168 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

\p look down on the natives," said Mrs. Makely, with an
air of argument.

The young fellow laughed. " Oh, yes, you do," he
said, not unamiably, and he added, " and you've got
the right to. We're not fit to associate with you, and
you know it, and we know it. You've got more
money, and you've got nicer clothes, and you've got
prettier manners. You talk about things that most
natives never heard of, and you care for things they
never saw. I know it's the custom to pretend differ-
ently, but I'm not going to pretend differently." I
recalled what my friend, the banker, said about throw-
ing away cant, and I asked myself if I were in the
presence of some such free spirit again. I did not
see how young Camp could afford it ; but then I re-
flected that he had really nothing to lose by it, for he
did not expect to make anything out of us; Mrs.
Makely would probably not give up his sister as
seamstress, if the girl continued to work so well and
so cheaply as she said. " Suppose," he went on,
"that some old native took you at your word, and
came to call upon you at the hotel, with his wife, just
as one of the city cottagers would do if he wanted to
make your acquaintance ? "

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 169

" I should be perfectly delighted ! " said Mrs.
Makely, and I should receive them with the greatest
possible cordiality."

" The same kind of cordiality that you would show
to the cottagers ? "

" I suppose that I should feel that I had more in
common with the cottagers. We should be interested
in the same things, aud we should probably know the
same people and have more to talk about " —

"You would both belong to the same class, and
that tells the whole story. If you were out west, and
the owner of one of those big, twenty thousand acre
farms called on you with his wife, would you act to-
ward them as you would toward our natives ? You
wouldn't ! You would all be rich people together,
and you would understand each other because you
had money."

" Now, that is not so," Mrs. Makely interrupted.
" There are plenty of rich people one wouldn't wish
to know at all, and who really can't get into society ;
who are ignorant and vulgar. And then when you
come to money, I don' t see but what country people
are as glad to get it as anybody."

" Oh, gladder," said the young man.

170 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Well ? " demanded Mrs. Makely, as if this were a
final stroke of logic. The young man did not reply,
and Mrs. Makely continued : " Now I will appeal to
your sister to say whether she has ever seen any diff-
erence in my manner toward her from what I show to
all the young ladies in the hotel." The young girl
flushed, and seemed reluctant to answer. "Why,
Lizzie ! " cried Mrs. Makely, and her tone showed
that she was really hurt.

The scene appeared to me rather cruel and I
glanced at Mrs. Camp, with an expectation that she
would say something to relieve it. But stie did not.
Her large, benevolent face expressed only a quiet
interest in the discussion.

" You know very well, Mrs. Makely," said the girl,
" you don't regard me as you do the young ladies in
the hotel."

There was no resentment in her voice or look, but
only a sort of regret, as if, but for this grievance, she
could have loved the woman from whom she had
probably had much kindness. The tears came into
Mrs. Makely's eyes, and she turned toward Mrs.
Camp. " And is this the way you all feel toward
us ? " she asked.

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 171

" Why shouldn't we ? " asked the invalid, in her
.turn. " But, no, it isn't the way all the country peo-
ple feel. Many of them feel as you would like to
have them feel ; but that is because they do not think.
When they think, they feel as we do. But I don't
blame you. You can't help yourselves, any more than
we can. We're all bound up together in that, at
least."

At this apparent relenting, Mrs. Makely tricked her
beams a little, and said, plaintively, as if offering her-
self for further condolence : " Yes, that is what that
woman at the little shanty back there said : some have
to be rich, and some have to be poor \ it takes all
kinds to make a world."

" How would you like to be one of those that have
to be poor ? " asked young Camp, with an evil grin.

" I don't kjiow," said Mrs. Makely, with unexpected
spirit ; " but I am sure that I should respect the feel-
ings of all, rich or poor."

" I am sorry if we have hurt yours, Mrs. Makely,"
said Mrs. Camp, with dignity. " You asked us cer.
tain questions, and we thought you wished us to reply
truthfully. We could not answer you with smooth
things."

V

172 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" But sometimes you do," said Mrs. Makely, and
the tears stood in her eyes again. *' And you know
Low fond I am of you all ! "

Mrs. Camp wore a bewildered look. " Perhaps we
have said more than we ought. But I couldn't help
it, and I don't see how the children could, when you
asked them here, before Mr. Ilomos."

I glanced at the Altrurian, sitting attentive and
silent, and a sudden misgiving crossed my mind con-
cerning him. Was he really a man, a human entity,
a personality like ourselves, or was he merely a sort of
\ jfepiritual solvent, sent for the moment to precipitate
Jwvhatever sincerity there was in us, and show us what
Ithe truth was concerning our relations to each other ?
It was a fantastic conception, but I thought it was one
that I might employ in some sort of purely romantic
design, and I was professionally grateful for it. I
said, with a humorous gaiety ; " Yes, we all seem to
have been compelled to be much more honest than we
like ; and if Mr. llomos is going to write an account
of his travels, when he gets home, he can't accuse us
of hypocrisy, at any rate. And I always used to
think it was one of our virtues ! What with Mr.
Camp, here, and my friend, the banker, at the hotel,

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRUKIA. 173

I don't think he'll have much reason to complain even
of our reticence."

" Well, whatever he says of us," sighed Mrs.
Makely, with a pious glance at the sword over the
bed, " he will have to say that, in spite of our divis-
ions and classes, we are all Americans, and if we
haven't the same opinions and ideas on minor matters,
we all have the same country."

" I don't know about that," came from Reuben
Camp, with shocking promptness. " I don't believe
we all have the same country. America is one thing
for you, and it's quite another thing for us. America
means ease, and comfort, and amusement for you,
year in and year out, and if it means work, it's work
that you wish to do. For us, America means work
that we have to do, and hard work, all the time, if
we're going to make both ends meet. It means liberty
for you ; but what liberty has a man got who doesn't ^
know where his next meal is coming from ? Once I
was in a strike, when I was working on the railroad,
and I've seen men come and give up their liberty for
a chance to earn their family's living. They knew
they were right, and that they ought to have stood up
for their rights ; but they had to lie down, and lick

174 A TRAVELER FROM A^iTRURIA.

\

the hand that fed them ! Tefi;^-5ste-are all Americans,
but I guess we haven't all got the same country, Mrs.
Makely. What sort of a country has a black-listed
man got ? "

"A black-listed man?" she repeated. "I don't
know what you mean."

" Well, a kind of man IVe seen in the mill towns,
that the bosses have all got on their books as a man
/ that isn't to be given work on any account ; that's to
be punished with hunger and cold, and turned into
the street, for having offended them ; and that's to be
made to suffer through his helpless family, for having
offended them."

*' Excuse me, Mr. Camp," I interposed, " but isn't
a black-listed man usually a man who has made him-
self prominent in some labor trouble ? "

" Yes," the young fellow answered, without seeming
sensible of the point I had made.

" Ah ! " I returned. " Then you can hardly blame
the employers for taking it out of him in any way
they can. That's human nature."

" Good heavens ! " the Altrurian cried out. " Is it
possible that in America it is human nature to take
away the bread of a man's family, because he has

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 175

gone counter to your interest or pleasure on some
economical question ? "

"Well, Mr. Twelvemough seems to think so,"
sneered the young man. "But whether it's human
nature or not, it's a fact that they do it, and you can
guess how much a black-listed man must love the
country where such a thing can happen to him. What
should you call such a thing as black-listing in Altru-
ria?"

" Oh, yes," Mrs. Makely pleaded, " do let us get
him to talking about Altruria, on any terms. I think
all this about the labor question is so tiresome ; don't
you, Mrs. Camp ? "

Mrs. Camp did not answer ; but the Altrurian said,
in reply to her son : " We should have no name for
such a thing, for with us such a thing would be im-
possible. .There is no crime so henious, with us, that
the punishment would take away the criminal's chance
of earning his living."

" Oh, if he was a criminal," said young Camp, " he
would be all right, here. The state would give him a
chance to earn his living, then."

" But if he had no other chance of earning his liv-
ing, and had committed no offense against the laws" —
12

176 A TEAVELBB FROM ALTRURIA.

" Then the state would let him take to the road.
Like that fellow ! "

He pulled aside the shade of the window, where he
sat, and we saw pausing before the house, and glanc-
ing doubtfully at the door-step, where the dog lay, a
vile and loathsome-looking tramp, a blot upon the
sweet and wholesome landscape, a scandal to the
sacred day. His rags burlesqued the form which they
did not wholly hide ; his broken shoes were covered
with dust; his coarse hair came in a plume
through his tattered hat ; his red, sodden face, at once
fierce and timid, was rusty with a fortnight's beard.
He offended the eye like a visible stench, and the
wretched carrion seemed to shrink away from our
gaze, as if he were aware of his loathsomeness.

" Really," said Mrs. Makely, " I thought those fel-
lows were arrested, now. It is too bad to leave them
at large. They are dangerous." Young Camp left
the room and we saw him going out toward the tramp.

" Ah, that's quite right ! " said the lady. " I hope
Reuben is going to send him about his business.
Why, surely he's not going to feed the horrid crea-
ture ! " she added, as Camp, after a moment's parley
with the tramp, turned with him, and disappeared

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 177

round the corner of the house. " Now, Mrs. Camp,
I think that is really a very bad example. It's en-
couraging them. Very likely, he'll go to sleep in
your barn, and set it on fire with his pipe. What do
you do with tramps in Altruria, Mr. Homos ? "

The Altrurian seemed not to have heard her. He
said to Mrs. Camp : " Then I understand from some-
thing your son let fall that he has not always been
at home with you, here. Does he reconcile himself
easily to the country after the excitement of town life ?
I have read that the cities in America are draining
the country of the young people."

" I don't think he was sorry to come home," said
the mother with a touch of fond pride. " But there
was no choice for him after his father died ; he was
always a good boy, and he has not made us feel that
we were keeping him away from anything better.
When his father was alive we let him go, because then
we were not so dependent, and I wished him to try
his fortune in the world, as all boys long to do. But
he is rather peculiar, and he seems to have got quite
enough of the world. To be sure, I don't suppose
he's seen the brightest side of it. He first went to
work in the mills down at Ponkwasset, but he was

178 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

laid off there, when tlie hard times came, and there
was so much overproduction, and he took a job of
railroading, and was braking on a freight train when
his father left us."

Mrs. Makely said, smiling, " No, I don't think that
was the brightest outlook in the world. No wonder
he has brought back such gloomy impressions. I am
sure that if he could have seen life under brighter
auspices he would not have the ideas he has."

" Very likely," said the mother dryly. " Our ex-
periences have a great deal to do with forming our
opinions. But I am not dissatisfied with my son's
ideas. I suppose Reuben got a good many of his
ideas from his father : he's his father all over again.
My husband thought slavery Avas wrong, and he went
into the war to fight against it. He used to say when
the war was over that the negroes were emancipated,
^ y but slavery was not abolished yet."

" What in the world did he mean by that ? " de-
manded Mrs. Makely.

" Something you wouldn't understand as we do. I
tried to carry on the farm after he first went, and be-
fore Reuben was large enough to help me much, and

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 179

ought to be in school, and I suppose I overdid. At '
any rate that was when I had my first shock of paral-
ysis. I never was very strong, and I presume my.,
health was weakened by my teaching school so much,
and studying, before I was married. But that doesn't
matter now, and hasn't for many a year. The place
was clear of debt, then, but I had to get a mortgage
put on it. The savings bank down in the village took
it, and we've been paying the interest ever since.
My husband died paying it, and my son will pay it
all my life, and then I suppose the bank will foreclose.
The treasurer was an old playmate of my hus-
band's, and he said that as long as either of us lived,
the mortgage could lie."

" How splendid of him ! " said Mrs. Makcly. " I
should think you had been very fortunate."

" I said that you would not see it as we do," said
the invalid patiently.

The Altrurian asked : " Are there mortj^ao-es on
many of the farms in the neighborhood ? "

" Nearly all," said Mrs. Camp. " We seem to own
them, but in fact they own us."

Mrs. Makely hastened to say : " My husband thinks
it's the best way to have your property. If you

180 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

mortgage it close up, you have all your capital free,
and you can keep turning it over. That's what you
ought to do, Mrs. Camp. But what was the slavery
that Captain Camp said was not abolished yet ? "

The invalid looked at her a moment without reply-
ing, and just then the door of the kitchen opened,
and young Camp came in, and began to gather some
food from the table on a plate.

" Why don't you bring him to the table, Reub ? "
his sister called to him.

" Oh, he says he'd rather not come in, as long as
we have company, He says he isn't dressed for din-
ner ; left his spike-tail in the city."

The young man laughed and his sister with him.

VIII.

Young Camp carried out the plate of victuals to
the tramp, and Mrs. Makely said to his mother, " I
suppose you would make the tramp do some sort of
work to earn his breakfast on week-days ? "

" Not always," Mrs. Camp replied. " Do the
boarders at the hotel always work to earn their break-,
fast?"

" No, certainly not," said Mrs. Makely, with the
sharpness of offence. " But they always pay for it."

" I don't think that paying for a thing is earning it.
Perhaps some one else earned the money that pays
for it. But I believe there is too much work in the
world. If I were to live my life over again, I should
not work half so hard. My husband and I took this

?^

182 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

place when we were young married people, and began
working to pay for it. We wanted to feel that it was
ours, that we owned it, and that our children should
own it afterwards. We both worked all day long like
slaves, and many a moonlight night we were up till
morning, almost, gathering the stones from our fields,
and burying them in deep graves that we had dug for
them. But we buried our youth, and strength, and
health in those graves, too, and what for? I don't
own the farm that we worked so hard to pay for, and
my children won't. That is what it has all come to.
We were rightly punished for our greed, I suppose.
Perhaps no one has a right to own any portion of the
earth. Sometimes I think so, but my husband and I
earned this farm, and now the savings bank owns it.
That seems strange, doesn't it ? I suppose you'll say
that the bank paid for it. Well, perhaps so ; but the
bank didn't earn it. When I think of that I don't al-
ways think that a person who pays for his breakfast
has the best right to a breakfast."

I could see the sophistry of all this, but I had not
the heart to point it out ; I felt the pathos of it, too.
Mrs. Makely seemed not to see the one nor to feel the
other, very distinctly. " Yes, but surely," she said,

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 183

" if you give a tramp his breakfast without making
him work for it, you must see that it is encouraging
idleness. And idleness is very corrupting — the sight
of it."

" You mean to the country people ? Well, they
have to stand a good deal of that. The summer folks
that spend four or five months of the year here, don't
seem to do anything from morning till night." ^

" Ah, but you must recollect that they are restinfj!
You have no idea how hard they all work in town dur-
ing the winter," Mrs. Makely urged, with an air of
argument.

"Perhaps the tramps are resting, too. At any
rate, I don't think the sight of idleness in rags, and
begging at back doors, is very corrupting to the coun-
try people ; I never heard of a single tramp who had
started from the country ; they all come from the
cities. It's the other kind of idleness that tempts our
young people. The only tramps that my son says he
ever envies are the well dressed, strong young fellows
from town, that go tramping through the mountains
for exercise every summer."

The ladies both paused. They seemed to have got
to the end of their tether ; at least Mrs. Makely had

V

184 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

apparently nothing else to advance, and I said lightly,
** But that is just the kind of tramps that Mr. Homos
would most disapprove of. He says that in Altruria
they would consider exercise for exercise' sake a
wicked waste of force, and little short of lunacy."

I thought my exaggeration might provoke him to
denial, but he seemed not to have found it unjust.
" Why, you know," he said to Mrs. Camp, " in Altru-
ria every one works with his hands, so that the hard
work shall not all fall to any one class ; and this
manual labor of each is sufficient to keep the body in
health, as well as to earn a living. After the three
hours' work, which constitutes a day's work with us,
is done, the young people have all sorts of games and
sports, and they carry them as late into life as the
temperament of each depaands. But what I was say-
ing to Mr. Twelvemough — perhaps I did not make
myself clear — was that we should regard the sterile
putting forth of strength in exercise, if others were
each day worn out with hard manual labor, as insane
or immoral. But I can account for it differently with
you, because I understand that in your conditions a
person of leisure could not do any manual labor with-
out taking away the work of some one who needed it

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 185

to live by ; and could not even relieve an overworked
laborer, and give him the money for the work without
teaching him habits of idleness. In Altruria we can
all keep ourselves well by doing each his share of
hard work, and we can help those who are exhausted,
when such a thing happens, without injuring them
materially or morally."

Young Camp entered at this moment and the Altru-
rian hesitated. " Oh, do go on ! " Mrs. Makely en-
treated. She added to Camp, " We've got him to
talking about Altruria at last, and we wouldn't have
him stopped for worlds."

The Altrurian looked around at all our faces, and
no doubt read our eager curiosity in them. He smiled,
and said, " I shall be very glad I'm sure. But I do not
think you will find anything so remarkable in our
civilization, if you will conceive of it as the outgrowth
of the neighborly instinct. In fact, neighborliness is
the essence of Altrurianism. If you will imagine
having the same feeling toward all," he explained to
Mrs. Makely, " as you have toward your next door
neighbor " —

" My next door neighbor ! " she cried. " But I don't
know the people next door ! We live in a large

186 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

apartment house, some forty families, and I assure
you I do not know a soul among them."

He looked at her with a puzzled air, and she con-
tinued, " Sometimes it does seem rather hard. One
day the people on the same landing with us, lost one
of their children, and I should never have been a
whit the wiser, if my cook hadn't happened to men-
tion it. The servants all know eaclf other ; they meet
in the back elevator, and get acquainted. I don't en-
courage it. You can't tell what kind of families they
belong to."

" But surely," the Altrurian persisted, " you have
friends in the city whom you think of as your neigh-
bors ? "

" No, I can't say that I have," said Mrs. Makely.
" I have my visiting list, but I shouldn't think of any-
body on that as a neighbor."

The Altrurian looked so blank and baffled that I
could hardly help laughing. " Then I should not
know how to explain Altruria to you, I'm afraid."

" Well," she returned lightly, " if it's anything like
neighborliness, as I've seen it in small places, deliver
me from it ! I like being independent. That's why
I like the city. You're let alone."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA 187

" I was down in New York, once, and I went
tlirougli some of the streets and houses where the poor
people live," said young Camp, " and they seemed to
know each other, and to be quite neighborly."

" And would you like to be all messed in with each
other, that way ? " demanded the lady.

" Well, I thought it was better than living as we do
in the country, so far apart that we never see each
other, hardly. And it seems to me better than not
having any neighbors at all."

" Well, every one to his taste," said Mrs. Makely.
" I wish you would tell us how people manage with
you, socially, Mr. Ilomos."

" Why, you know," he began, "we have neither city
nor country in your sense, and so we are neither so
isolated nor so crowded together. You feel that you
lose a great deal, in not seeing each other oftener ? "
he asked Camp.

" Yes. Folks rust out, living alone. It's human
nature to want to get together."

" And I understand Mrs. Makely that it is human
nature to want to keep apart ? "

" Oh, no, but to come together independently," she
answered.

188 A TRAVELEK FROM ALTRURIA.

" Well tliat is what we have contrived in our life
at home. I should have to say, in the first place,
that"—

" Excuse me, just one moment, Mr. Homos ! " said
Mrs. Makely. This perverse woman was as anxious to
hear about Altruria as any of us, but she was a wom-
an who would rather hear the sound of her own voice
than any other, even if she were dying, as she would
call it, to hear the other. The Altrurian stopped
politely, and Mrs. Makely went on : "I have been
thinking of what Mr. Camp was saying about the
black-listed men, and their all turning into tramps " —

" But I didn't say that, Mrs. Makely," the young
fellow protested, in astonishment.

" Well, it stands to reason that af the tramps have
all been black-listed men " —

" But I didn't say , that, either ! "

" No matter ! What I am trying to get at is this :
if a workman Jias made himself a nuisance to the
, employers, haven't they a right to punish him in any
way they can ? "

" I believe there's no law yet, against black-listing,"
said Camp.

" Very well, then, I don't see what they've got to

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 189

complain of. The employers surely know their own
business. "

*' They claim to know the men's too: That's what ^i^^
they're always saying ; they will manage their own
affairs in their own way. But no man, or company,
that does business on a large scale, has any affairs
that are not partly other folks' affairs, too. All the
saying in the world won't make it different."

"Very well, then," said Mrs. Makely, with a force
of argument which she seemed to think was irresis-
tible, " I think the workmen had better leave things
to the employers, and then they won't get black-listed.
It's as broad as it's long." I confess, that although I
agreed with Mrs. Makely in regard to what the work-
men had better do, her position had been arrived at
by such extraordinary reasoning that I blushed for
her ; at the same time, I wanted to laugh. She con-
tinued triumphantly, " You see, the employers have
ever so much more at stake."

" The men have everything at stake ; the work of
their hands," said the young fellow.

" Oh, but surely," said Mrs. Makelyi, "you wouldn't
set that against capital ? You wouldn't compare the
two ? "

r
u*^ ^

^K'-'

190 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Yes, I should," said Camp, and I could see his
eye kindle and his jaw stiffen.

" Then, I suppose you would say that a man ought
to get as much for his work as an employer gets for
his capital. If you think one has as much at stake as
the other, you must think they ought to be paid
alike."

" That is just what I think," said Camp, and Mrs.
Makely burst into a peal of amiable laughter.

" Now, that is too preposterous! "

" Why is it preposterous ? " he demanded, with a
quivering nostril.

" "Why, simply because it w," said the lady, but
she did not say why, and although I thought so, too,
I was glad she did not attempt to do it, for her con-
clusions seemed to me much better than her reasons.

The old wooden clock in the kitchen began to
strike, and she rose briskly to her feet, and went and
laid the books she had been holding in her lap on the
table beside Mrs. Camp's bed. " We must really be
going," she said, as she leaned over and kissed the
invalid. " It is your dinner time, and we shall barely
get back for lunch, if we go by the Loop road ; and I
want very much to have Mr. Homos see the Witch's

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 191

Falls, on the way. I have got two or three of the
books here that Mr. Makely brought me last night — I
sha'n't have time to read them at once^and I'm
smuggling in one of Mr. Twelvemough's, that he's
too modest to present for himself." She turned a gay
glance upon me, and Mrs. Camp thanked me, and a
number of civilities followed from all sides. In the
process of their exchange, Mrs. Makely's spirits per-
ceptibly rose, and she came away in high good-humor
with the whole Camp family. " Well, now, I am
sure," she said to the Altrurian, as we began the long
ascent of the Loop road, " you must allow that you
have seen some very original characters. But how
warped people get living alone so much ! That is the
great drawback of the country. Mrs. Camp thinks the
savings bank did her a real injury in taking a mort-
gage on her place, and Reuben seems to have seen
just enough of the outside world to get it all wrong !
But they are the best-hearted creatures in the world,
and I know you won't misunderstand them. That un-
sparing country bluntness, don't you think it's per-
fectly delightful ? I do like to stir poor Reuben up,
and get him talking. He is a good boy, if he is so

wrong-headed, and he's the most devoted son and
13

192 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

brother in the world. Very few young fellows would
waste their lives on an old farm like that ; I suppose
when his mother dies he will marry and strike out for
himself in some growing place."

" He did not seem to think the world held out any
very bright inducements for him to leave home," the
Altrurian suggested.

*' Oh, let him get one of these lively, pushing
Yankee girls for a wife, and he will think very differ-
ently," said Mrs. Makely.

The Altrurian disappeared that afternoon, and I
saw little or nothing of him till the next day at
supper. Then he said he had been spending the time
with young Camp, who had shown him something of
the farm work, and introduced him to several of the
neighbors ; he was very much interested in it all, be-
cause at home he was, at present, engaged in farm
work himself, and he was curious to contrast the Amer-
ican and Altrurian methods. We began to talk of the
farming interest again, later in the day, when the
members of our little group came together, and I told
them what the Altrurian had been doing. The doctor
had been suddenly called back to town; but the
minister was there, and the lawyer, and the professor,

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 193

and the banker, and the manufacturer. It was the
banker who began to comment on what I said, and
he seemed to be in the frank humor of the Saturday
night before. " Yes," he said, " it's a hard life, and
they have to look sharp, if they expect to make both
ends meet. I would not like to undertake it myself,
with their resources."

The professor smiled, in asking the Altrurian :
" Did your agricultural friends tell you anything of
the little rural traffic in votes that they carry on about
election time ? That is one of the side means they
have of making both ends meet."

" I don't understand," said the Altrurian.

" Why, you know that you can buy votes among our
virtuous yeoman, from two dollars up, at the ordinary
elections. When party feeling runs high, and there
are vital questions at stake, the votes cost more."

The Altrurian looked round at us all, aghast : "Do
you mean that Americans buy votes ? "

The professor smiled again. " Oh, no ; I only
mean that they sell them. Well, I don't wonder that
they rather prefer to blink the fact ; but it is a fact,
nevertheless, and pretty notorious."

" Good heavens ! " cried the Altrurian. " And

^

194 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

what defense have they for such treason? I don't
mean those Avho sell ; from what I have seen of the
bareness and hardship of their lives, I could well im-
agine that there might, sometimes, come a pinch
when they would be glad of the few dollars that they
could get in that way ; but what have those who buy
to say ? "

" Well," said the professor, " it isn't a transaction
that's apt to be talked about, much, on either side."

"I think," the banker interposed, "that there is
some exaggeration about that business ; but it certainly
exists, and I suppose it is a growing evil in the country.
I fancy it arises, somewhat, from a want of clear
thinking on the subject. Then, there is no doubt but
it comes, sometimes, from poverty. A man sells his
vote, as a woman sells her person, for money, when
neither can turn virtue into cash. They feel that
they must live, and neither of them would be satisfied
if Dr. Johnson told them he didn't see the necessity.
In fact, I shouldn't, myself, if I were in their places.
You can't have the good of a civilization, like ours, with-
out having the bad ; but I am not going to deny that
the bad is bad. Some people like to do that ; but I
don't find my account in it. In either case, I confess

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRTJRIA. 195

that I think the buyer is worse than the seller — in-
comparably worse. I suppose you are not troubled
with either case, in Altruria ? "

" Oh, no ! " said the Altrurian, with an utter horror,
which no repetition of his words can give the sense
of. " It would be unimaginable."

" Still," the banker suggested, " you have cakes
and ale, and at times the ginger is hot in the mouth?"

" I don't pretend that we have immunity from /^*>^
error ; but upon such terms as you have described,
we have none. It would be impossible."

The Altrurian's voice expressed no contempt, but
only a sad patience, a melancholy surprise, such as a
celestial angel might feel in being suddenly confronted
with some secret shame and horror of the Pit.

" Well," said the banker, " with us, the only way
is to take the business view and try to strike an aver-
age somewhere."

" Talking of business," said the professor, turning
to the manufacturer, who had been quietly smoking,
" why don't some of you capitalists take hold of farm-
ing, here in the east, and make a business of it as
they do in the west ? "

" Thank you," said the other, " if you mean me, I

196 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

would rather not invest." He was silent a moment,
and then he went on, as if the notion were beginning
to win upon him : " It may come to something like
that, though. If it does, the natural course, I should
think, would be through the railroads. It would be a
very easy matter for them to buy up all the good
farms along their lines and put tenants on them, and
run them in their own interest. Really, it isn't a bad
scheme. The waste in the present method is enor-
mous, and there is no reason why the roads should
not own the farms, as they are beginning to own the
mines. They could manage them better than the
small farmers do, in every way. I wonder the thing
hasn't occurred to some smart railroad man."

We all laughed a little, perceiving the semi-ironical
spirit of his talk ; but the Altrurian must have taken
it in dead earnest : " But, in that case, the number of
people thrown out of work would be very great,
wouldn't it ? And what would become of them ? "

"Well, they would have whatever their farms
brought, to make a new start with somewhere else ;
and, besides, that question of what would become of
people thrown out of work by a given improvement,
is something that capital cannot consider. We used

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 197

to introduce a bit of machinery, every now and then,
in the mill, that threw out a dozen, or a hundred peo-
ple ; but we couldn't stop for that."

" And you never knew what became of them ? "

" Sometimes. Generally not. We took it for
granted that they would light on their feet, somehow."

"And the state — the whole people — the govern-
ment— did nothing for them ? "

" If it became a question of the poor-house, yes."

" Or the jail," the lawyer suggested.

" Speaking of the poor-house," said the professor,
" did our exemplary rural friends tell you how they
sell out their paupers to the lowest bidder, and get
them boarded sometimes as low as a dollar and a
quarter a week ? "

" Yes, young Mr. Camp told me of that. He
seemed to think it was terrible."

" Did he ? Well, I'm glad to hear that of young
Mr. Camp. From all that I've been told before, he
seems to reserve his conscience for the use of capi-
talists. What does he propose to do about it ? "

" He seems to think the state ought to find work
for them."

" Oh, paternalism ! Well, I guess the state wont."

198 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" That was his opinion, too."

" It seems a hard fate," said the minister, " that
the only provision the law makes for people who are
worn out by sickness or a life of work should be
something that assorts them with idiots and lunatics,
and brings such shame upon them that it is almost as
terrible as death."

" It is the only way to encourage independence and
individuality," said the professor. " Qf course, it has
its dark side. But anything else would be sentimen-
tal and unbusinesslike, and in fact, un-American."

" I am not so sure that it would be un-Christian,"
the minister timidly ventured, in the face of such an
authority on political economy.

" Oh, as to that, I must leave the question to the
reverend clergy," said the professor.

A very unpleasant little silence followed. It was
broken by the lawyer, who put his feet together, and
after a glance down at them, began to say, " I was
very much interested this afternoon by a conversation
I had with some of the young fellows in the hotel.
You know most of them are graduates, and they are
taking a sort of supernumerary vacation this summer,
before they plunge into the battle of life in the autumn.

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA 199

They were talking of some other fellows, classmates
of theirs, who were not so lucky, but had been ob-
liged to begin the fight at once. It seems that our
fellows here are all going in for some sort of profes-
sion : medicine, or law, or engineering, or teaching, or
the church, and they were commiserating those other
fellows not only because they were not having the
supernumerary vacation, but because they were going
into business. That struck me as rather odd, and I
tried to find out what it meant, and as nearly as I
could find out, it meant that most college graduates
would not go into business if they could help it.
They seemed to feel a sort of incongruity between
their education and the business life. They pitied
the fellows that had to go in for it, and apparently
the fellows that had to go in for it pitied themselves,
for the talk seemed to have begun about a letter that
one of the chaps here had got from poor Jack or Jim
somebody, who had been obliged to go into his
father's business, and was groaning over it. The
fellows who were going to study professions were
hugging themselves at the contrast between their fate
and his, and were making remarks about business
that were to say the least unbusinesslike. A few

200 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

years ago we should have made a summary disposi-
tion of the matter, and I believe some of the newspa-
pers still are in doubt about the value of a college
education to men who have got to make their way.
What do you think ? "

The lawyer addressed his question to the manufac-
turer, who answered with a comfortable satisfaction,
that he did not think those young men if they went
into business would find that they knew too much.

" But they pointed out," said the lawyer, " that
the great American fortunes had been made by men
who had never had their educational advantages, and
they seemed to think that what we call the education
of a gentleman was a little too good for money-mak-
ing purposes."

" Well," said the other, " they can console them-
selves with the reflection that going into business
isn't necessarily making money; it isn't necessarily
making a living, even."

" Some of them seem to have caught on to that
fact ; and they pitied Jack or Jim partly because the
chances were so much against him. But they pitied
him mostly because in the life before him he would
have no use for his academic training, and he had

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 201

better not gone to college at all. They said lie would
be none the better for it, and would always be miser-
able when he looked back to it."

The manufacturer did not reply, and the professor,
after a preliminary hemming, held his peace. It was
the banker who took the word. " Well, so far as
business is concerned, they were right. It is no use
to pretend that there is any relation between business -
and the higher education. There is no business man
who will pretend that there is not often an actual in-
compatibility, if he is honest. I know that when we
get together at a commercial or financial dinner, we
talk as if great merchants and great financiers were
beneficent geniuses, who evoked the prosperity of
mankind by their schemes from the conditions that
would otherwise have remained barren. Well, very
likely they are, but we must all confess that they do
not know it at the time. What they are consciously
looking out for then is the main chance. If general
prosperity follows, all well and good ; they are willing
to be given the credit for it. But, as I said, with bus-
iness as business, the ' education of a gentleman ' has
nothing to do. That education is always putting the
old Ciceronian question : whether the fellow arriving

202 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

at a starving city with a cargo of grain is bound to
tell the people before he squeezes them, that there are
half a dozen other fellows with grain just below the
horizon. As a gentleman he would have to tell them,
because he could not take advantage of their necess-
ities ; but as a business man, he would think it bad
business to tell them, or no business at all. The
principle goes all through ; I say, business is business;
and I am not going to pretend that business will ever
be anything else. In our business battles, we don't
take off our hats to the other side, and say, ' Gentle-
men of the French Guard, have the goodness to fire. '
That may be war, but it is not business. We seize
all the advantages we can ; very few of us would act-
ually deceive ; but if a fellow believes a thing, and we
know he is wrong, we do not usually take the trouble
to set him right, if we are going to lose anything by
undeceiving him. That would not be business. I
suppose you think that is dreadful ? " He turned
. smilingly to the minister.

ys^M-^ j^ "I wish — I wish," said the minister, gently, "it
-\fl'^'^'(\ could be otherwise."

"Well, I wish so, too," returned the ban-
ker. " But it isn't. Am I right or am I wrong ? "

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 203

he demanded of the manufacturer, who laughed.

" I am not conducting this discussion. I will not
deprive you of the floor."

" What you say," I ventured to put in, " reminds
me of the experience of a friend of mine, a brother
novelist. He wrote a story where the failure of a
business man turned on a point just like that you have
instanced. The man could have retrieved himself if
he had let some people believe that what was so was ^«^/
not so, but his conscience stepped in and obliged him ^^ **

to own the truth. There was a good deal of talk '

about the case, I suppose because it was not in real
life, and my friend heard divers criticisms. He heard
of a group of ministers who blamed him for exalting
a case of common honesty, as if it were something
extraordinary; and ho heard of some business men (
who talked it over, and said he had worked the case
up splendidly, but he was all wrong in the outcome ;
the fellow would never have told the other fellows.
They said it would not have been business."

We all laughed except the minister and the Altru-
rian, the manufacturer said, " Twenty-five years hence,
the fellow who is going into business, may pity the
fellows who are pitying him for his hard fate now."

204 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

"Very possibly, but not necessarily," said the
banker. " Of course, the business man is on top, as
far as money goes ; he is the fellow who makes the
big fortunes; the millionaire lawyers, and doctors,
and ministers are exceptional. But his risks are tre-
mendous. Ninety-five times out of a hundred he
fails. To be sure, he picks up and goes on, but he
seldom gets there, after all."

" Then in your system," said the Altrurian, " the
r great majority of those who go into what you call the
battle of life, are defeated ? "

" The killed, wounded and missing sum up a fright-
ful total," the banker admitted. " But whatever the
end is, there is a great deal of prosperity on the way.
The statistics are correct, but they do not tell the
whole truth. It is not so bad as it seems. Still,
simply looking at the material chances, I don't blame
those young fellows for not wanting to go into busi-
ness. And when you come to other considerations !
We used to cut the knot of the difficulty pretty sharp-
ly ; we said a college education was wrong ; or, the hot
and hot AmericanVpreadeaglers did. Business is the
, national ideal, and the successful business man is the
/^" American type. It is a business man's country."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 205

"Then, if I understand you," said the Altrurian,
"and I am very anxious to have a clear understanding
of the matter, the effect of the university with you is
to unfit a youth for business life."

" Oh, no. It may give him great advantages in it,
and that is the theory and expectation of most fathers
who send their sons to the university. But, undoubt-
edly, the effect is to render business-life distasteful.,
The university nurtures all sorts of lofty ideals, which
business has no use for."

" Then the effect is undemocratic ? "

"No, it is simply unbusinesslike. The boy is a
better democrat when he leaves college, than he will
be later, if he goes into business. The university has
taught him and equipped him to use his own gifts
and powers for his advancement, but the first lesson
of business and the last, is to use other men's gifts ;; u'^. J^
and powers. If he looks about him at all, he sees t-i f
that no man gets rich simply by his own labor, no
matter how mighty a genius he is, and that if you
want to get rich, you must make other men work for
\ you, and pay you for the privilege of doing so.
Isn't that true ? "

The banker turned to the manufacturer with this

206 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA

question, and the other said, *' The theory is, that we
give people work," and they both laughed.

The minister said, " I believe that in Altruria, no
man works for the profit of another ? "

" No ; each works for the profit of all," replied the
Altrurian.

" Well," said the banker, " you seem to have made
it go. Nobody can deny that. But we couldn't
make it go here."

" Why ? I am very curious to know why our sys-
tem seems so impossible to you ! "
^\jy^ " Well, it is contrary to the American spirit. It is

' ^alien to our love of individuality."

" But we prize individuality ; too, and we think we
secure it under our system. Under yours, it seems
to me that while the individuality of the man who
makes other men work for him is safe, except from
itself, the individuality of the workers " —

" Well, that is their lookout. We have found that
upon the whole, it is best to let every man look out
for himself. I know that, in a certain light, the re-
sult has an ugly aspect ; but, nevertheless, in spite of
all, the country is enormously prosperous. The pur-
suit of happiness, which is one of the inalienable

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 207

rights secured to us by the Declaration is, and always
has been, a dream ; but the pursuit of the dollar yields
tangible proceeds, and we get a good deal of excite-
ment out of it, as it goes on. You can't deny that
we are the richest nation in the world. Do you call
Altruria a rich country ? "

I could not quite make out whether the banker was
serious or not in all this talk ; sometimes I suspected
him of a fine mockery, but the Altrurian took him
upon the surface of his words. J"^^^

" I hardly know whether it is or not. The question vc ^
of wealth does not enter into our scheme. I can say ^ ^ ^ ^
that we all have enough, and that no one is even in 'r

the fear of want."

" Yes, that is very well. But we should think it
was paying too much for it, if we had to give up the
hope of ever having more than we wanted," and at
this point the banker uttered his jolly laugh, and I
perceived that he had been trying to draw the Altru-
rian out, and practice upon his patriotism. It was a
great relief to find that he had been joking, in so much i ^
that seemed a dead give-away of our economical posi-
tion. " In Altruria," he asked, " who is your ideal

great man ? I don't mean personally, but abstractly."
14

rvv\

/

208 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

The Altrurian thought a moment. " With us, there
is so little ambition for distinction, as you understand
it, that your question is hard to answer. But I
should say, speaking largely, that it was some man
who had been able for the time being, to give the
reatest happiness to the greatest number — some art-
ist, or poet, or inventor, or physician."

I was somewhat surprised to have the banker take
this preposterous statement seriously, respectfully;
"Well, that is quite conceivable with your system.
What should you say," he demanded of the rest of
us, generally, " was our ideal of greatness ? "

No one replied at once, or at all, till the manufac-
turer said, " We will let you continue to run it."

"Well, it is a very curious inquiry, and I have
thought it over a good deal. I should say that within
a generation our ideal had changed twice. Before
the war, and during all the time from the revolution
onward, it was undoubtedly the great politician, the
publicist, the statesman. As we grew older and be-
gan to have an intellectual life of our own, I think the
literary fellows had a pretty good share of the honors
that were going ; that is, such a man as Longfellow
was popularly considered a type of greatness. When

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 209

the war came, it brought the soldier to the front, and
there was a period of ten or fifteen years when he
d^ominated the national imagination. That period
passed, and the great era of material prosperity set
in. The big fortunes began to tower up, and heroes
of another sort began to appeal to our admiration. I
don't think there is any doubt but the millionaire is
now the American ideal. It isn't very pleasant to
think so, even for people who have got on, but it can't
very hopefully be denied. It is the man with the
most money who now takes the prize in our national
cake-walk."

The Altrurian turned curiously toward me, and I
did my best to tell him what a cake-walk was. When
I had finished, the banker resumed, only to say, as
he rose from his chair to bid us good-night, " In any
average assembly of Americans, the greatest million-
aire would take the eyes of all from the greatest
statesman, the greatest poet, or the greatest soldier,
we ever had. That," he added to the Altrurian,
" will account to you for many things, as you travel
through our country."

IX.

The next time the members of our little group came
together, the manufacturer began at once upon the
banker :

" I should think that our friend, the professor,
here, would hardly like that notion of yours, that
business, as business, has nothing to do with the edu-
cation of a gentleman. If this is a business man's
country, and if the professor has nothing in stock but
the sort of education that business has no use for, I
should suppose that he would want to go into some
other line."

The banker mutely referred the matter to the pro-
fessor, who said, with that cold grin of his which I
hated :

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 211

" Perhaps we shall wait for business to purge and
live cleanly. Then it will have some use for the edu-
cation of a gentleman."

" I see," said the banker, " that I have touched the
quick in both of you, when I hadn't the least notion
of doing so. But I shouldn't, really, like to prophesy
which will adapt itself to the other : education or bus- I
iness. Let us hope there will be mutual concessions, j
There are some pessimists who say that business
methods, especially on the large scale of the trusts
and combinations, have grown worse, instead of
better; but this may be merely what is called a
* transition state.' Hamlet must be cruel to be kind ;
the darkest hour comes before dawn: and so on.
Perhaps when business gets the whole affair of life
into its hands, and runs the republic, as its enemies
now accuse it of doing, the process of purging and
living cleanly will begin. I have known lots of fel-
lows who started in life rather scampishly ; but when
they felt secure of themselves, and believed that they
could afford to be honest, they became so. There's
no reason why the same thing shouldn't happen on a
large scale. We must never forget that we are still
a very novel experiment, though we have matured so I

212 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

rapidly in some respects, that we have come to re-
gard ourselves as an accomplished fact. We are, really,
less so than we were forty years ago, with all the
tremendous changes since the war. Before that, we
could take certain matters for granted. If a man got
out of work, he turned his hand to something else ;
if a man failed in business, he started in again from
some other direction ; as a last resort, in both cases,
he went West, pre-empted a quarter section of public
land, and grew up with the country. Now, the coun-
try is grown up ; the public land is gone ; business is
full on all sides, and the hand that turned itself to
something else has lost its cunning. The struggle for
I life has changed from a free fight to an encounter of
disciplined forces, and the free fighters that are left
get ground to pieces between organized labor and
organized capital. Decidedly, we are in a transition
state, and if the higher education tried to adapt itself
to business needs, there are chances that it might sac-
rifice itself without helping business. After all, how
much education docs business need ? Were our great
fortunes made by educated men, or men of university
training ? I don't know but these young fellows are
right about that."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 213

" Yes, that may all be," I put in. " But it seems
to me that you give Mr. Homos, somehow, a wrong
impression of our economic life by your generaliza-
tions. You are a Harvard man yourself."

" Yes, and I am not a rich man. A million or two,
more or less ; but what is that ? I have suffered, at
the start and all along, from the question as to what
a man with the education of a gentleman ought to do
in such and such a juncture. The fellows who have y ^
not that sort of education have not that sort of ques- j
tion, and they go in and win."

" So you admit, then," said the professor, " that the
higher education elevates a business man's standard /
of morals ? "

" Undoubtedly. That is one of its chief draw-
backs," said the banker, with a laugh.

" Well," I said, with the deference due even to a
man who had only a million or two, more or less, " we
must allow you to say such things. But if the case
is so bad with the business men who have made the
great fortunes — the business men who have never had
the disadvantage of a university education — I wish
you would explain to Mr. Homos why, in every public
exigency, we instinctively appeal to the business sense

214 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

of the community, as if it were the fountain of wis-
dom, probity and equity. Suppose there were some
question of vital interest — I won't say financial, but
political, or moral, or social — on which it was nec-
essary to rouse public opinion ; what would be the
first thing to do ? To call a meeting, over the signa-
tures of the leading business men ; because no other
names appeal with such force to the public. You
might get up a call signed by all the novelists, artists,
ministers, lawyers and doctors in the state, and it
would not have a tithe of the effect, with the people
at large, that a call signed by a few leading merchants,
bank presidents, railroad men and trust officers, would
have. What is the reason ? It seems strange that I
should be asking you to defend yourself against your-
self."

" Not at all, my dear fellow, not at all ! " the ban-
ker replied, with his caressing bonhomie. " Though
I will confess, to begin with, that I do not expect to
answer your question to your entire satisfaction. I
can only do my best — on the installment plan."
He turned to the Altrurian, and then went on :
" As I said the other night, this is a business man^s
country. We are a purely commercial people ; money

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

215

'^v//

is absolutely to the fore ; and business, which is the \^
means of getting the most money, is the American ^

ideal. If you like, you may call it the American
fetish ; I don't mind calling it so myself. The fact
that business is our ideal, or our fetish, will account
for the popular faith in business men, who form its
priesthood, its hierarchy. I don't know, myself, any
other reason for regarding business men as solider
than novelists, or artists, or ministers, not to mention
lawyers and doctors. They are supposed to have long
heads ; but it appears that ninety-five times out of a
hundred they haven't. They are supposed to be very
reliable ; but it is almost invariably a business man, of
some sort, who gets out to Canada while the state
examiner is balancing his books, and it is usually the
longest-headed business men who get plundered by
him. No, it is simply because business is our national
ideal, that the business man is honored above all
other ni.en among us. In the aristocratic countries
they forward a public object under the patronage of y
the nobility and gentry ; in a plutocratic country they
get the business men to endorse it. I suppose that
the average American citizen feels that they wouldn't
endorse a thing unless it was safe ; and the average

1

216 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

American citizen likes to be safe — ^lie is cautious. As
a matter of fact, business men are always taking
risks, and business is a game of chance, in a certain
degree. Have I made myself intelligible ? "

"Entirely so," said the Altrurian; and he seemed
so thoroughly well satisfied, that he forebore asking
any question farther.

No one else spoke. The banker lighted a cigar,
and resumed at the point where he left ofE when I
ventured to enter upon the defense of his class with
him. I must say that he had not convinced me at all.
At that moment, I would rather have trusted him, in
any serious matter of practical concern, than all the
novelists I ever heard of. But I thought I would leave
J,' J- the word to him, without further attempt to reinstate
him in his self-esteem. In fact, he seemed to be get-

. '-It

ft \)^ ting along very well without it ; or else he was feeling

>^ that mysterious control from the Altrurian which I

had already suspected him of using. Voluntarily or
involuntarily, the banker proceeded with his contribu-
tion to the Altrurian's stock of knowledge concerning
our civilization :

" I don't believe, however, that the higher educa-
tion is any more of a failure, as a provision for a

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 217

business career, tlian the lower education is for the
life of labor. I suppose that the hypercritical observer
might say that in a wholly commercial civilization,
like ours, the business man really needed nothing
beyond the three R's, and the workingman needed no
R at all. As a practical affair, there is a good deal to
be said in favor of that view. The higher education
is part of the social ideal which we have derived
from the past, from Europe. It is part of the provi-
sion for the life of leisure, the life of the aristocrat,
which nobody of our generation leads, except women.
Our women really have some use for the education of
a gentleman, but our men have none. How will
that do for a generalization ? " the banker asked of
me.

" Oh," I admitted, with a laugh, " it is a good deal
like one of my own. I have always been struck with
that phase of our civilization."

" Well, then," the banker resumed, " take the lower
education. This is part of the civic ideal which, I
suppose, I may say we evolved from the depths of our
inner consciousness of what an American citizen
ought to be. It includes instruction in all the R's,
and in several other letters of the alphabet. It is given

218 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

free by tlie state, and no one can deny that it is
[S thoroughly socialistic in conception and application."

" Distinctly so," said the professor. " Now that
the text-books are furnished by the state, we have
only to go a step farther, and provide a good, hot
lunch for the children every day, as they do in Paris."

" Well," the banker returned, " I don't know that I
should have much to say against that. It seems as
reasonable as anything in the system of education
which we force upon the working-classes. They
know, perfectly well, whether we do or not, that the
three R's will not make their children better me-
chanics or laborers, and that, if the fight for a mere
living is to go on, from generation to generation, they
will have no leisure to apply the little learning they
get in the public schools for their personal culture. In
the meantime, we deprive the parents of their chil-
dren's labor, in order that they may be better citizens
for their schooling, as we imagine ; I don't know
whether they are or not. We offer them no sort of
compensation for their time, and I think we ought to
feel obliged to them for not v^mting wages for their
children while we are teaching them to be better cit-
izens."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 219

" You know," said the professor, " that has been
suggested by some of their leaders."

" No, really ? Well, that is too good ! " The banker
threw back his head, and roared, and we all laughed
with him. When we had sobered down again, he
said : " I suppose that when a working man makes all
the use he can of his lower education, he becomes a
business man, and then he doesn't need the higher.
Professor, you seem to be left out in the cold, by our
system, whichever way you take it."

" Oh," said the professor, " the law of supply and
demand works both ways ; it creates the demand, if
the supply comes first ; and if we keep on giving the
sons of business men the education of a gentleman,
we may yet make them feel the need of it. We shall
evolve a new sort of business man."

" The sort that can't make money, or wouldn't
exactly like to, on some terms ? " asked the banker.
" Well, perhaps we shall work out our democratic sal-
vation in that way. When you have educated your
new business man to the point where he can't consent
to get rich at the obvious cost of others, you've got
him on the way back to work with his hands. He will ' i^J\
sink into the ranks of labor, and give the fellow with

/

220 A TRAVELER PROM ALTRURIA.

the lower education a chance. I've no doubt he'll
take it. I don't know but you're right, professor."

The lawyer had not spoken, as yet. Now he said :
" Then, it is education, after all, that is to bridge the
chasm between the classes and the masses, though it
seems destined to go a long way around about it.
There was a time, I believe, when we expected
religion to do that."

" Well, it may still be doing it, for all I know,"
said the banker. " What do you say ? " he asked,
turning to the minister. "You ought to be able to
give us some statistics on the subject with that large
congregation of yours. You preach to more people
than any other pulpit in your city."

The banker named one of the principal cities in
the east, and the minister answered, with modest
pride : " I am not sure of that ; but our society is
certainly a very large one."

"Well, and how many of the lower classes are
there in it — people who work for their living with
their hands ? "

The minister stirred uneasily in his chair, and at
last he said, with evident unhappiness : " They — 1
suppose — they have their own churches. I have never

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 221

thougM tliat such a separation of the classes was
right ; and I have had some of the very best people —
socially and financially — with me in the wish that
there might be more brotherliness between the rich
and poor among us. But as yet" —

He stopped ; the banker pursued : "Do you mean
there are no working-people in your congregation ? "

" I cannot think of any," returned the minister so
miserably that the banker forbore to press the point.

The lawyer broke the awkward pause which fol-
lowed : " I have heard it asserted that there is no
country in the world, where the separation of the
classes is so absolute as in ours. In fact, I once
heard a Russian revolutionist, who had lived in exile
all over Europe, say that he had never seen anywhere
such a want of kindness or sympathy between rich
and poor, as he had observed in America. I doubted
whether he was right. But he believed that, if it
ever came to the industrial revolution with us, the
fight would be more uncompromising than any such
fight that the world had ever seen. There was no re-
spect from low to high, he said, and no consideration
from high to low, as there were in countries with tra-
ditions and old associations."

222 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Well," said the banker, " there may be something
in that. Certainly, so far as the two forces have
come into conflict here, there has been no disposition,
on either side, to * make war with the water of roses.'
It's astonishing, in fact, to see how ruthless the fel-
lows who have just got up are towards the fellows
who are still down. And the best of us have been up
only a geuerfition or two — ^and the fellows who are
still down know it."

" And what do you think would be the outcome of
such a conflict ? " I asked, with my soul divided be-
tween fear of it, and the perception of its excellence
as material. My fancy vividly sketched the outline
of a story which should forecast the struggle and its
event, somewhat on the plan of the Battle of Dorking.

" We should beat," said the banker, breaking his
cigar-ash off with his little finger ; and I instantly cast
him, with his ironic calm, for the part of a great pa-
trician leader, in my Fall of the Republic. Of course,
I disguised him somewhat, and travestied his worldly
bonhomie with the bluff sang-froid of the soldier ;
these things are easily done.

" What makes you think we should beat ? " asked
the manufacturer, with a certain curiosity.

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 223

" Well, all the good jingo reasons : we have got the
materials for beating. Those fellows throw away
their strength whenever they begin to fight, and
they've been so badly generated, up to the present
time, that they have wanted to fight at the outset of
every quarrel. They have been beaten in every quar-
rel, but still they always want to begin by fighting.
That is all right. When they have learned enough I vy. ^ ,-<
to begin by voting, then we shall have to look out.
But if they keep on fighting, and always putting
themselves in the wrong and getting the worst of it,
perhaps we ean fix the voting so we needn't be any
•more afraid of that than we are of the fighting. It's
astonishing how shortsighted they arc. They have
no conception of any cure for their grievances, except
more wages and fewer hours."

"But," I asked, "do you really think they have
any just grievances ? "

" Of course not, as a business man," said the ban-
ker. "If I were a workingman, I should probably
think differently. But we will suppose for the sake
of argument, that their day is too long and their pay
is too short. How do they go about to better them-
selves ? They strike. Well, a strike is a fight, and
15

224 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

in a fight, now-a-days, it is always skill and money
that win. The workingraen can't stop till they have
put themselves outside of the public sympathy which
the newspapers say is so potent in their behalf; I
never saw that it did them the least good. They be-
gin by boycotting, and breaking the heads of the men
r who want to work. They destroy property, and they
^ ! interfere with business — the -two absolutely sacred
! things in the American religion. Then we call out
the militia, and shoot a few of them, and their leaders
declare the strike off. It is perfectly simple."

" But will it be quite as simple," I asked, reluctant
in behalf of my projected romance, to have the matter
so soon disposed of, " will it be quite so simple if
their leaders ever persuade the workingmen to leave
the militia, as they threaten to do, from time to time ? "

" No, not quite so simple," the banker admitted.
" Still, the fight would be comparatively simple.
In the first place, I doubt — though I won't be certain
about it — whether there are a great many workingmen
in the militia now. I rather fancy it is made up, for
the most part, of clerks and small tradesmen, and
book-keepers, and such employees of business as have
time and money for it. I may be mistaken."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 225

No one seemed able to say whether he was mistaken
or not ; and, after waiting a moment, he proceeded :
" I feel pretty sure that it is so in the city companies
and regiments, at any rate, and that if every working-
man left them, it would not seriously impair their
effectiveness. But when the working-men have left
the militia, what have they done ? They have elim-
inated the only thing that disqualifies it for prompt
and unsparing use against strikers. As long as they
are in it, we might have our misgivings, but if they
were once out of it, we should have none. And what
would they gain ? They would not be allowed to
arm and organize as an inimical force. That was
settled once for all, in Chicago, in the case of the
International Groups. A few squads of policemen
would break them up. Why," the banker exclaimed,
with his good-humored laugh, " how preposterous
they are when you come to look at it ! They are in
the majority, the immense majority, if you count the
farmers, aud they prefer to behave as if they were the
hopeless minority. They say they want an eight-hour
law, and every now and then they strike, and try to
fight it. Why don't they vote it ? They could make
it the law in six months, by such overwhelming num-

226

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

■^

/

bers that no one would dare to evade or defy it.
They can make any law they want, but they prefer to
break such laws as we have. That ' alienates public
sympathy,' the newspapers say, but the spectacle of
their stupidity and helpless wilfulness is so lamentable
that I could almost pity them. If they chose, it
would take only a few years to transform our govern-
ment into the likeness of anything they wanted. But
they would rather not have what they want, appar-
ently, if they can only keep themselves from getting
it, and they have to work hard to do that ! "

" I suppose," I said, " that they are misled by the
un-American principles and methods of the socialists
among them."

" Why, no," returned the banker, " I shouldn't say
that. As far as I understand it, the socialists are the
only fellows among them who propose to vote their
ideas into laws, and nothing can be more American
than that. I don't believe the socialists stir up the
strikes, at least among our workingmen, though the
newspapers convict them of it, generally without try-
ing them. The socialists seem to accept the strikes
as the inevitable outcome of the situation, and they
malre use of them as proofs of the industrial disco n-

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 227

tent. But, luckily for the status, our labor leaders
are not socialists, for your socialist, whatever you
may say against him, has generally thought himself
into a socialist. He knows that until the workingmen
stop fighting, and get down to voting — until they con-
sent to be the majority — there is no hope for them.
I am not talking of anarchists, mind you, but of so-
cialists, whose philosophy is more law, not less, and
who look forward to an order so just that it can't be '
disturbed."

" And what," the minister faintly said, " do yo-u
think will be the outcome of it all ? "

" We had that question the other night, didn't we ?
Our legal friend, here, seemed to feel that we might
rub along indefinitely as we are doing, or work out an
Altruria of our own ; or go back to the patriarchial
stage, and own our workingmen. lie seemed not to
have so much faith in the logic of events as I have.
I doubt if it is altogether a woman's logic. Parole
feminine^ fatti maschi, and the logic of events isn't
altogether words ; it's full of hard knocks, too. But
I'm no prophet. I can't forecast the future ; I prefer
to take it as it comes. There's a little tract
Ham Morris's though — I forget just what he

I prefer
of Wil- p
3 calls it I

228 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

— that is full of curious and interesting speculation
on this point. He thinks that if we keep the road we
are now going, the last state of labor will be like its
first, and it will be owned."

" Oh, I don^t believe that will ever happen in Amer-
ica," I protested.

" AVhy not ? " asked the banker. " Practically, it is
owned already in a vastly greater measure than we
recognize. And where would the great harm be ?
The new slavery would not be like the old. There
needn't be irresponsible whipping and separation of
families, and private buying and selling. The prole-
tariat would probably be owned by the state, as it
was at one time in Greece ; or by large corporations,
which would be much more in keeping with the gen-
ius of our free institutions : and an enlightened public
opinion would cast safeguards about it in the form of
law to guard it from abuse. But it would be strictly
policed, localized, and controlled. There would prob-
ably be less suffering than there is now, when a man
may be cowed into submission to any terms through
the suffering of his family ; when he may be starved
out and turned out if he is unruly. You may be sure
that nothing of that kind would happen in the new

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 229

slavery. We have not had nineteen hundred years of 4 i -^^^^
Christianity for nothing."

The banker paused, and as the silence continued
he broke it with a laugh, which was a prodigious re-
lief to my feelings, and I suppose to the feelings of all.
I perceived that he had been joking, and I was con-
firmed in this when he turned to the Altrurian and
laid his hand upon his shoulder. " You see," he said,
" I'm a kind of Altrurian myself. What is the reason
why we should not found a new Altruria here on the
lines I've drawn ? Have you never had philosophers
— well, call them philanthropists ; I don't mind — of
my way of thinking among you ? "

"Oh, yes," said the Altrurian. "At one time,
just before we emerged from the competitive condi-
tions, there was much serious question whether capital
should not own labor, instead of labor owning capital.
That was many hundred years ago."

"I am proud to find myself such an advanced
thinker," said the banker. " And how came you to
decide th*at labor should own capital?"

" We voted it,'* answered the Altrurian.

" Well," said the banker, " our fellows are still
fighting it, and getting beaten."

y

230 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

I found him later in the evening, talking with Mrs.
Makely. " My dear sir," I said, " I liked your frank-
ness with my Altrurian friend immensely ; and it
may be well to put the worst foot foremost ; but what
is the advantage of not leaving us a leg to stand
upon ? "

He was not in the least offended at my boldness,
as I had feared he might be, but he said with that
jolly laugh of his, " Capital ! Well, perhaps I have
worked ray candor a little too hard ; I suppose there
is such a thing. But don't you see that it leaves me
in the best possible position to carry the war into
Altruria, when we get him to open up about his native
land ? "

" Ah ! If you can get him to do it."

"Well, we were just talking about that. Mrs.
Makely has a plan."

" Yes," said the lady, turning an empty chair near
her own, toward me. " Sit down and listen 1 "

I SAT down, and Mrs. Makely continued : " I have
thought it all out, and I want you to confess that in
all practical matters a woman's brain is better than a
man's. Mr. Bullion, here, says it is, and I want you
to say so, too."

" Yes," the banker admitted, " when it comes down
to business, a woman is worth any two of us."

"And we have just been agreeing," I coincided,
" that the only gentlemen among us are women. Mrs.
Makely, I admit, without further dispute, that the
most unworldly woman is wordlier than the worldliest
man ; and that in all practical matters we fade into
dreamers and doctrinaires beside you. Now, go on !"

But she did not mean to let me off so easily. She

232 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

began to brag herself up, as women do, whenever you
make them the slightest concession.

" Here, you men," she said, " have been trying for
a whole week to get something out of Mr. Homos
about his country, and you have left it to a poor,
weak woman, at last, to think how to manage it. I
do believe that you get so much interested in your
own talk, when you are with him, that you don't let
him get in a word, and that's the reason you haven't
found out anything about Altruria, yet, from him."

In view of the manner in which she had cut in at
Mrs. Camp's, and stopped Homos on the very verge
of the only full and free confession he had ever been
near making about Altruria, I thought this was pretty
cool, but, for fear of worse, I said :

"You're quite right, Mrs. Makely. I'm sorry to
say that there has been a shameful want of self-con-
trol among us, and that, if we learn anything at all
from him, it will be because you have taught us how.'*

She could not resist this bit of taffy. She scarcely
gave herself time to gulp it, before she said : '

" Oh, it's very well to say that, now ! But where
would you have been, if I hadn't set my wits to work?
Now, listen I It just popped into my mind, like an

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 233

inspiration, when I was thinking of something alto-
gether different. It flashed upon me in an instant : a
good object, and a public occasion."

" Well ? " I said, finding this explosive and electri-
cal inspiration rather enigmatical.

" Why, you know, the Union chapel, over in the
village, is in a languishing condition, and the ladies
have been talking all summer about doing something
for it, getting up something — a concert, or theatricals,
or a dance, or something — and applying the proceeds
to repainting and papering the visible church ; it needs
it dreadfully. But, of course, those things are not
exactly religious, don't you know; and a fair is so
much trouble ; and such a bore, when you get the arti-
cles ready, even ; and everybody feels swindled ; and
now people frown on raffles, so there is no use think-
ing of them. What you want is something striking.
W^e did think of a parlor-reading, or perhaps ventril-
oquism ; but the performers all charge so much that
there wouldn't be anything left after paying expenses."

She seemed to expect some sort of prompting at
this point ; so I said, " Well ? "

" Well," she repeated, " that is just where your
Mr. Homos comes in."

234 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Oh ! How does he come in there ? "

" Why, get him to deliver a Talk on Altruria. As
soon as he knows it's for a good object, he will be on
fire to do it ; and they must live so much in common
there, that the public occasion will be just the thing
that will appeal to him."

It did seem a good plan to me, and I said so. But
Mrs. Makely was so much in love with it, that she
was not satisfied with my modest recognition.

" Good ? It's magnificent ! It's the very thing !
And I have thought it out, down to the last detail " —

" Excuse me ! " I interrupted. " Do you think
there is sufficient general interest in the subject, out-
side of the hotel, to get a full house for him? I
shouldn't like to see him subjected to the mortifica-
tion of empty benches."

" What in the world are you thinking of ? Why,
there isn't a farm-house, anywhere within ten miles,
where they haven't heard of Mr. Homos ; and there
isn't a servant under this roof, or in any of the board-
ing-houses, who doesn't know something about Altru-
ria and want to know more. It seems that your
friend has been much oftener with the porters and
the stable boys than he has been with us."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 235

I had only too great reason to fear so. In spite of
my warnings and entreaties, lie bad continued to
behave toward every human being he met, exactly as
if they were equals. He apparently could not con-
ceive of that social difference which difference of
occupation creates among us. He owned that he saw
it, and from the talk of our little group, he knew it
existed ; but when I expostulated with him upon some
act in gross violation of society usage, he only
answered that he could not imagine that what he saw
and knew could actually be. It was quite impossible
to keep him from bowing with the greatest deference
to our waitress ; he shook hands with the head waiter
every morning as well as with me ; there was a fearful
story current in the house, that he had been seen run-
ning down one of the corridors to relieve a chamber-
maid laden with two heavy waterpails, which she was
carrying to the rooms to fill up the pitchers. This
was probably not true, but I myself saw him helping
in the hotel hayfield one afternoon, shirt-sleeved like
any of the hired men. He said that it was the best
possible exercise, and that he was ashamed he could
give no better excuse for it than the fact that without
something of the kind he should suffer from indiges-

236 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

^ Ltion. It was grotesque, and out of all keeping with a
^^ ^^ man of his cultivation and breeding. He was a gen-
^ J,*- tleman and a scholar, there was no denying, and yet
he did things in contravention of good form at every
opportunity, and nothing I could say had any effect
with him. I was perplexed beyond measure, the day
after I had reproached him for his labor in the hay-
field, to find him in a group of table-girls, who were
listening while the head waiter read aloud to them in
the shade of the house; there was a corner looking
toward the stables which was given up to them by
tacit consent of the guests during a certain part of the
afternoon. I feigned not to see him, but I could not
forbear speaking to him about it afterwards. He took
it m good part, but he said he had been rather disap-
pointed in the kind of literature they liked, and the
comments they made on it ; he had expected that with
the education they had received, and with their ex-
perience of the seriousness of life, they would prefer
something less trivial. He supposed, however, that a
romantic love story, where a poor American girl mar-
ries an English lord, formed a refuge for them from
the real world which promised them so little and held
them so cheap. It was quite useless for one to try to

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 237 C

make him realize his behavior in consorting with ser- i,;^'^/)*^
vants as a kind of scandal. / ^

The worst of it was that his behavior, as I could
see, had already begun to demoralize the objects of
his misplaced politeness. At first, the servants stared
and resented it, as if it were some tasteless joke ; but
in an incredibly short time, when they saw that he
meant his courtesy in good faith they took it as their
due. I had always had a good understanding with
the head waiter, and I thought I could safely smile
with him at the queer conduct of my friend toward
himself and his fellow servants. To my astonishment
he said, *' I don't see why he shouldn't treat them as
if they were ladies and gentlemen. Doesn't he treat
you and your friends so ? "

It was impossible to answer this, and I could only
suffer in silence, and hope the Altrurian would soon
go. I had dreaded the moment when the landlord
should tell me that his room was wanted ; now I al-
most desired it, but he never did. On the contrary,
the Altrurian was in high favor with him. He said
he liked to see a man make himself pleasant with ev-
erybody ; and that he did not believe he had ever had
a guest in the house who was so popular all round.

238 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Of course," Mrs. Makely went on, " I don't criti-
cise him — with his peculiar traditions. I presume I
should be just so myself if I had been brought up in
Altruria, which thank goodness, I wasn't. But Mr.
Homos is a perfect dear, and all the women in the
house are in love with him, from the cook's helpers,
up and down. No, the only danger is that there
won't be room in the hotel parlors for all the people
that will want to hear him, and we shall have to make
the admission something that will be prohibitive in
most cases. We shall have to make it a dollar."

" Well," I said, " I think ttat will settle the ques-
tion as far as the farming population is concerned.
It's twice as much as they ever pay for a reserved
seat in the circus, and four times as much as a simple
admission. I'm afraid, Mrs. Makely, you're going to
be very few, though fit."

" Well, I've thought it all over, and I'm going to
put the tickets at one dollar."

" Very good. Have you caught your hare ? "

** No, I haven't, yet. And I want you to help me
catch him. What do you think is the best way to go
about it?"

The banker said ho would leave us to the discussion

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 239

of that question, but Mrs. Makely could count upon
him in everything, if she could only get the man to
talk. At the end of our conference we decided to
interview the Altrurian together.

I shall always be ashamed of the way that woman
wheedled the Altrurian, when we found him the next
morning, walking up and down the piazza, before
breakfast. That is, it was before our breakfast ; when
we asked him to go in with us, he said he had just
had his breakfast, and was waiting for Reuben Camp,
who had promised to take him up as he passed with
a load of hay for one of the hotels in the village.

" Ah, that reminds me, Mr. Homos," the unscru-
pulous woman began on him, at once. " We want to
interest you in a little movement we're getting up for
the Union chapel in the village. You know it's the
church where all the different sects have their services,
alternately. Of course, it's rather an original way of
doing, but there is sense in it where the people are
too poor to go into debt for different churches, and — "

" It's admirable ! " said the Altrurian. " I have
heard about it from the Camps. It is an emblem of
the unity which ought to prevail among Christians of
all professions. How can I help you, Mrs. Makely ? "

240 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" I knew you would approve of it ! " she exulted.
" Well, it's simply this : The poor little place has got
so shabby that Tm almost ashamed to be seen going
into it, for one ; and want to raise money enough to
give it a new coat of paint outside and put on some
kind of pretty paper, of an ecclesiastical pattern, on
the inside. I declare, those staring white walls,
with the cracks in the plastering zigzagging every
which way, distract me so that I can't put my mind
on the sermon. Don't you think that paper, say of
a gothic design, would be a great improvement? I'm
sure it would ; and it's Mr. Twelvemough's idea, too."

I learned this fact now for the first time ; but, with
Mrs. Makely's warning eye upon me, I could not say
so, and I made what sounded to me like a gothic
murmur of acquiescence. It sufficed for Mrs. Make-
ly^s purpose, at any rate, and she went on, without
giving the Altrurian a chance to say what he thought
the educational effect of wall paper would be :

*' Well, the long and short of it is that we want you
to make this money for us, Mr. Homos.'*

" I ? " He started in a kind of horror. " My dear
lady, I never made any money in my life ! I should
think it wrong to make money ! "

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 241

" In Altruria, yes. We all know how it is in your
delightful country, and I assure you that no one could
respect your conscientious scrupled more than I do.
But you must remember that you are in America,
now. In America you have to make money, or else
— ^get left. And then you must consider the object,
and all the good you can do, indirectly, by a little
Talk on Altruria."

He answered, blandly : " A little Talk on Altruria ?
How in the world should I get money by that ? "

She was only too eager to explain, and she did it
with so much volubility and at such great length, that
I, who am good for nothing till I have had my cup of
coffee in the morning, almost perished of an elucida-
tion which the Altrurian bore with the sweetest
patience.

When she gave him a chance to answer, at last, he
said • " I shall be very happy to do what you wish,
madam."

" Will you ? " she screamed. " Oh, I'm so glad !
You have been so slippery about Altruria, you know,
that I expected nothiug but a point-blank refusal.
Of course, I knew you would be kind about it. Oh,
I can hardly believe my senses ! You can't think

242 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

what a dear you are." I knew she had got that word
from some English people who had been in the hotel ;
and she was working it rather wildly, but it was not
my business to check her. *' Well, then, all you have
got to do is to leave the whole thing to me, and not
bother about it a bit till I send and tell you we are
ready to listen. There comes Reuben with his ox-
team ! Thank you so much, Mr. Homos. No one
need be ashamed to enter the house of God " — she
said Gawd, in an access of piety — " after we get that
paint and paper on it ; and we shall have them on be-
fore two Sabbaths have passed over it."

She wrung the Altrurian's hand ; I was only afraid
she was going to kiss him.

" There is but one /tipulation I should like to
make," he began.

*' Oh, a thousand," she cut in.

" And that is, there shall be no exclusion from my
lecture on account of occupation or condition. That
is a thing that I can in no wise countenance, even in
America ; it is far more abhorrent to me even than
money-making, though they are each a part and parcel
of the other."

"I thought it was that!" she retorted joyously.

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 243

" And I can assure you, Mr. Homos, there shall be
nothing of that kind. Every one — I don't care who . ^

it is, or what they do — shall hear you who buys a o-'^.i^i
ticket. Now, will that do ? " ^^

" Perfectly," said the Altrurian, and he let her
wring his hand again.

She pushed hers through my arm as we started for
the dining-room, and leaned over to whisper jubil
antly : " That will fix it ! He will see how much his
precious lower classes care for Altruria if they have
to pay a dollar apiece to hear about it. And I shall
keep faith with him to the letter."

I could not feel that she would keep it in the
spirit ; but I could only groan inwardly and chuckle
outwardly at the woman's depravity.

It seemed to me, though I could not approve of it,
a capital joke, and so it seemed to all the members of
the little group whom I had made especially ac-
quainted with the Altrurian. It is true that the
minister was somewhat troubled with the moral ques- <-/ /</
tion, which did not leave me wholly at peace ; and the l^i/j /C
banker affected to find a question of taste involved, jj^f
which he said he must let me settle, however, as the
man's host ; if I could stand it, he could. No one

244 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

said anything against the plan to Mrs. Makely, and
this energetic woman made us take two tickets apiece,
as soon as she got them printed, over in the village.
She got little hand-bills printed, and had them scat-
tered about through the neighborhood, at all the
hotels, boarding-houses and summer cottages, to give
notice of the time and place of the talk on Altruria.
She fixed this for the following Saturday afternoon,
in our hotel parlor ; she had it in the afternoon so as
not to interfere with the hop in the evening ; she put
tickets on sale at the principal houses, and at the
village drug-store, and she made me go about with her
and help her sell them at some of the cottages in per-
son.

T must say I found this extremely distasteful,
especially where the people were not very willing to
buy, and she had to urge them. They all admitted
the excellence of the object, but they were not so sure
about the means. At several places the ladies asked
who was this Mr. Homos, anyway ; and how did she
know he was really from Altruria ? He might be an
imposter.

Then Mrs. Makely would put me forward, and I
would be obliged to give such account of him as I

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 245

could, and to explain just how and why he came to be
my guest ; with the cumulative effect of bringing back
all the misgivings which I had myself felt at the out-
set concerning him, and which I had dissmissed as
too fantastic.

The tickets went off rather slowly, even in our own
hotel ; people thought them too dear ; and some, as
soon as they knew the price, said frankly they had
heard enough about Altruria already, and were sick
of the whole thing.

Mrs. Makely said this was quite what she had ex-
pected of those people ; that they were horrid, and
stingy and vulgar ; and she should see what face they
would have to ask her to take tickets when they were
trying to get up something. She began to be vexed
with herself, she confessed, at the joke she was play
ing on Mr. Homos, and I noticed that she put herself
rather defiantly en evidence in his company, whenever
she could in the presence of these reluctant ladies.
She told me she had not the courage to ask the clerk
how many of the tickets he had sold out of those she
had left at the desk. One morning, the third or
fourth, as I was going in to breakfast with her, the
head waiter stopped her as he opened the door, and

246 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA

asked modestly if she could spare him a few tickets,
for he thought he could sell some. To my amazement
the unprincipled creature said, " Why, certainly.
How many ? " and instantly took a package out of her
pocket, where she seemed always to have them. He
asked, Would twenty be more than she could spare ?
and she answered, " Not at all ! Here are twenty-
five," and bestowed the whole package upon him.

That afternoon Reuben Camp came lounging up
toward us, where I sat with her on the corner of the
piazza, and said that if she would like to let him try
his luck with some tickets for the Talk he would see
what he could do.

" You can have all you want, Reuben," she said,
" and I hope you'll have better luck than I have.
I'm perfectly disgusted with people."

She fished several packages out of her pocket this
time, and he asked, " Do you mean that I can have
them all?"

*' Every one, and a band of music into the bar-
gain" she answered recklessly. But she seemed a
little daunted when he quietly took them. "You
know there arc a hundred here ? "

" Yes, I should like to sec what I can do amongst

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 247

the natives. Then, there is a construction train over
at the junction, and I know a lot of the fellows. I
guess some of 'em would like to come."

" The tickets are a dollar each, you know," she
suggested.

" That's all right," said Camp. " Well, good after-
noon."

Mrs. Makely turned to me with a kind of gasp, as
he shambled away. " I don't know about that ! "

" About having the whole crew of a construction
train at the Talk ? I dare say it won't be pleasant to
the ladies who have bought tickets."

" Oh!'''' said Mrs. Makely with astonishing con-
tepmt, " I don't care what they think. But Reuben
has got all my tickets, and suppose he keeps them so
long that I won't have time to sell any, and then throws
them back on my hands ? / know ! she added joy-
ously. " I can go around now, and tell people that
my tickets are all gone ; and I'll go instantly and have
the clerk hold all he has left at a premium."

She came back looking rather blank.

" He hasn't got a single one left. He says an old
native came in this morning and took every last one
of them — ^he doesn't remember just how many. I

248 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

believe they're going to speculate on them ; and if
Reuben Camp serves me a trick like that — Why ! "
she broke off, " I believe I'll speculate on them my-
self ! I should like to know why I shouldn't ! Oh,
I should just like to make some of those creatures pay
double, or treble, for the chances they've refused. Ah,
Mrs. Bulkham," she called out to a lady who was
coming down the veranda toward us, " you'll be glad
to know I've got rid of all my tickets ! Such a
relief ! "

" You have ? " Mrs. Bulkham retorted.

"Every one."

" I thought," said Mrs. Bulkham, " that you under-
stood I wanted one for my daughter and myself, if
she came."

" I certainly didn't," said Mrs. Makely, with a wink
of concentrated wickedness at me. " But if you do,
you will have to say so now, without any ifs or ands
about it ; and if any of the tickets come back — I let
friends have a few on sale — I will give you two."

"Well, I do," said Mrs. Bulkham, after a moment.

" Very well, it will be five dollars for the two. I
y, / feel bound to get all I can for the cause. Shall I put
^^i ^ your name down ? "

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 249

" Yes," said Mrs. Bulkliam, rather crossly ; but
Mrs. Makely inscribed ber name on her tablets with a
radiant amiability, which suffered no eclipse when,
within the next fifteen minutes, a dozen other ladies
hurried up, and bought in at the same rate.

I could not stand it, and I got up to go away,
feeling extremely particeps criminis. Mrs. Makely
seemed to have a conscience as light as air.

" If Reuben Camp or the head waiter don't bring
back some of those tickets I don't know what I shall
do. I shall have to put chairs into the isles, and
charge five dollars apiece for as many people as I can
crowd in there. I never knew anything so perfectly
providential."

" I envy you the ability to see it in that light, Mrs.
Makely," I said, faint at heart. "Suppose Camp
crowds the place full of his train men, how will the
ladies that you've sold tickets to at five dollars apiece
like it ? "

" Pooh ! What do I care how they like it ! Horrid
things ! And for repairs on the house of Gawd, it's
the same as being in church, where everybody is
equah"

The time passed. Mrs. Makely sold chances to all

250 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

the ladies in the house ; on Friday night Reuben Camp
brought her a hundred dollars ; the head waiter had
already paid in twenty-five. " I didn't dare to ask
them if they speculated on them," she confided to
me. " Do you suppose they would have the con
science ? "

They had secured the large parlor of the hotel,
where the young people danced in the evening, and
where entertainments were held, of the sort usually
given in summer hotels ; we had already had a dra-
matic reading, a time with the phonograph, an
exhibition of necromancy, a concert by a college glee
club, and I do not know what else. The room would
hold perhaps two hundred people, if they were closely
seated, and by her own showing, Mrs. Makely had
sold above two hundred and fifty tickets and chances.
All Saturday forenoon she consoled herself with the
belief that a great many people at the other hotels
and cottages had bought seats merely to aid the
cause, and would not really come ; she estimated that
at least fifty would stj^y away : but if Reuben Camp
had sold his tickets among the natives, we might
expect every one of them to come and get his money's
worth ; she did not dare to ask the head waiter how
he had got rid of his twenty -five tickets.

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 251

The Lour set for the Talk to begin was three
o'clock, so that people could have their naps comfort-
ably over, after the one o'clock dinner, and be just in
the right frame of mind for listening. But long
before the appointed time, the people who dine at
twelve, and never take an afternoon nap, began to
arrive, on foot, in farm-wagons, smart buggies, mud-
crusted carryalls, and all manner of ramshackle
vehicles. They arrived as if coming to a circus, old
husbands and wives, young couples and their children,
pretty girls and their fellows, and hitched their
horses to the tails of their wagons, and began to make
a picnic lunch in the shadow of the grove lying
between the hotel and the station. About two, we
heard the snorting of a locomotive at a time when no
tram was due, and a construction train came in view,
with the men waving their handkerchiefs from the
windows, and apparently ready for all the fun there
was to be in the thing. Some of them had a small
flag in each hand, the American stars and stripes, and
the white flag of Altruria, in compliment to my guest,
I suppose. A good many of the farmers came over
to the hotel to buy tickets, which they said they
expected to get after they came, and Mrs. Makely

252 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

was obliged to pacify them with all sorts of lying
promises. From moment to moment she was in con-
sultation with the landlord, who decided to throw
open the dining-room, which connected with the
parlor, so as to allow the help and the neighbors to
hear, without incommoding the hotel guests. She
said that this took a great burden off her mind, and
that now she should feel perfectly easy, for now no
one could complain about being mixed up with the
servants and the natives, and yet every one could
hear perfectly.

She could not rest until she had sent for Homos
and told him of this admirable arrangement. I did
not know whether to be glad or not, when he in-
stantly told her that, if there was to be any such sep-
aration of his auditors, in recognition of our class
distinctions, he must refuse to speak at all.

" Then, what in the world are we to do ? " she
wailed out, and the tears came into her eyes.

" Have you got the money for all your tickets ? "
he asked with a sort of disgust for the whole trans-
action in his tone.

"Yes, and more, too. I don't believe there's a
soul, in the hotel or out of it that hasn't paid at least

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 258

a dollar to hear you : and that makes it so very em-
barrassing. Oh, dear Mr.Homos ! You won't be so
implacably high-principled as all that ! Think that
you are doing it for the house of Gawd."

The woman made me sick.

*' Then, no one," said the Altrurian, " can feel
aggrieved, or unfairly used, if I say what I have to
say in the open air, where all can listen equally,
without any manner of preference or distinction. We
•will go up to the edge of the grove over-looking the
tennis-court, and hold our meeting there, as the Altru-
rian meetings are always held, with the sky for a
roof, and with no walls but the horizon."

" The very thing ! " cried Mrs. Makely. "Who
would ever have thought you were so practical, Mr.
Ilomos ? I don't believe you're an Altrurian, after all :
I believe you are an American in disguise."

The Altrurian turned away, without making any
response to this flattering attribution of our national-* '^ /
ity to him ; but Mrs. Makely had not waited for any.
She had flown off, and I next saw her attacking the
landlord, with such apparent success, that he slapped
himself on the leg and vanished, and immediately the
porters and bell-boys and all the men-servants began

.<A

V

254 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

carrying out chairs to the tennis-court, which was
already well set round with benches. In a little
while the whole space was covered, and settees were
placed well up the ground toward the grove.

By half past two, the guests of the hotel came out,
and took the best seats, as by right, and the different
tallyhoes and mountain wagons began to arrive from
the other "hotels, with their silly hotel cries, and their
gay groups dismounted and dispersed themselves
over the tennis court until all the chairs were taken.
It was fine to see how the natives and the trainmen
and the hotel servants, with an instinctive perception
of the proprieties, yielded these places to their
superiors, and, after the summer folks were all seated,
scattered themselves on the grass and the pine-needles
about the border of the grove. I should have liked
to instance the fact to the Altrurian, as a proof that
this sort of subordination was a part of human nature,
and that a principle which pervaded our civilization,
after the democratic training of our whole national
life, must be divinely implanted. But there was no
opportunity for me to speak with him after the fact
had accomplished itself, for by this time he had taken
his place in front of a little clump of low pines and

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 255

was waiting for the assembly to quiet itself before he
began to speak. I do not think there could have
been less than five hundred present, and the scene
had that accidental picturesqueness which results from
the grouping of all sorts of faces and costumes.
Many of our ladies had pretty hats and brilliant
parasols, but I must say that the soberer tone of
some of the old farm-wives' brown calicoes and out-
dated bonnets contributed to enrich the coloring, and
there was a certain gayety in the sunny glisten of the
men's straw-hats, everywhere, that was very good.

The sky overhead was absolutely stainless, and the
light of the cool afternoon sun dreamed upon the
slopes of the solemn mountains to the east. The tall
pines in the background blackened themselves against
the horizon ; nearer they showed more and more
decidedly their bluish green, and the yellow of the
newly-fallen needles painted their aisles deep into the
airy shadows.

A little wind stirred their tops, and for a moment,

just before the Altrurian began to speak, drew from

them an organ-tone that melted delicately away as his

powerful voice rose.
17

XL

" I COULD not give you a clear account of the
present state of things in my country," the Altrurian
began, "without first telling ^oti something of our
conditions before the time of c^^ Evolutionr\lt seems
to be the law of all life, that nothi«g--^eati come to
fruition without dying and seeming to make an end.
It must be sown in corruption before it can be raised
in incorruption. The truth itself must perish to our
senses before it can live to our souls ; the Son of Man
must suffer upon the cross before we can know the
Son of God.

" It was so with His message to the world, which
we received in the old time as an ideal realized by the
earliest Christians, who loved one another and who

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 257

had all things common. The apostle cast away upon CT

our heathen coasts, won us with the story of this first
Christian republic, and he established a commonwealth
of peace and goodwill among us in its likeness. Thr.t,
commonwealth perished, just as its prototype perished,
or seemed to perish ; and long ages of civic and eco-
nomic warfare succeeded, when every man's hand was
against his neighbor, and might was the rule that got
itself called right. Religion ceased to be the hope of
this world, and became the vague promise of the next.
We descended into the valley of the shadow, and
dwelt amid chaos for ages, before we groped again
into the light.

" The first glimmerings were few and indistinct,
but men formed themselves about the luminous points
here and there, and when these broke and dispersed
into lesser gleams, still men formed themselves about
each of them. There arose a system of things,
better, indeed, than that darkness, but full of war,
and lust, and greed, in which the weak rendered hom-
age to the strong, and served them in the field and in
the camp, and the strong in turn gave the weak pro-
tection against the other strong. It was a juggle in
which the weak did not see that their safety was

<-.

k.

258 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

after all from themselves ; but it was an image of
peace, however false and fitful, and it endured for a
time. It endured for a limited time, if we measure
by the life of the race ; it endured for an unlimited
time if we measure by the lives of the men who were
born and died while it endured.

" But that disorder, cruel and fierce and stupid,
which endured because it sometimes masked itself as
order, did at last pass away. Here and there one of
the strong overpowered the rest ; then the strong be-
came fewer and fewer, and in their turn they all
yielded to a supreme lord, and throughout the land
there was one rule, as it was called then, or one mis-
rule, as we should call it now. This rule, or this
misrule, continued for ages more ; and again, in the
immortality of the race, men toiled and struggled, and
died without the hope of better things.

"Tlien the time came when the long nightmare
was burst with the vision of a future in which all
men were the law, and not one man, or any less num-
ber of men than all.

** The poor, dumb beast of humanity rose, and the
throne tumbled, and the scepter was broken, and the
crown rolled away into that darkness of the past.

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 259

We thought that heaven had descended to iis, and
that liberty, equality and fraternity were ours. We
could not see what should again alienate us from one
another, or how one brother could again oppress an-
other. With a free field and no favor, we believed
we should prosper on together, and there would be
peace and plenty for all. We had the republic,
again, after so many ages now, and the republic, as
we knew it in our dim annals, was brotherhood and
universal happiness. All but a very few who proph-
esied evil of our lawless freedom, were wrapped in
a delirium of hope. Men's minds and men's hands
were suddenly released to an activity unheard of be-
fore. Invention followed invention ; our rivers and
seas became the warp of commerce where the steam-
sped shuttles carried the woof of enterprise to and
fro with tireless celerity. Machines to save labor
multiplied themselves as if they had been procreative
forces ; and wares of every sort were produced with
incredible swiftness and cheapness. Money seemed
to flow from the ground • vast fortunes * rose like an
exhalation,' as your Milton says.

" At first we did not know that they were the
breath of the nethermost pits of hell, and that the

260 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

love of money which was becoming universal with us,
Avas filling the earth with the hate of men. It was

- V. long before we came to realize that in the depths of

H' our steamships were those who fed the fires with their

'^(v.^**^^"''j'ives, and that our mines from which we dug our

Qf^^'lM wealth were the graves of those who had died to the

\^fi/ ^^^^ \\^i and air, without finding the rest of death.

I We did not see that the machines for saving labor

were monsters that devoured women and children,

and wasted men at the bidding of the power which no

man must touch.

" That is, we thought we must not touch it, for it
called itself prosperity, and wealth, and the public
good, and it said that it gave bread, and it impudently
bade the toiling myriads consider what would become
of them, if it took away their means of wearing them-
selves out in its service. It demanded of the state
absolute immunity and absolute impunity, the right
to do its will wherever and however it would, without
question from the people who were the final law. It
had its way, and under its rule we became the richest
people under the sun. The Accumulation, as we
called this power, because we feared to call it by its
true name, rewarded its own with gains of twenty, of

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 261

a hundred, of a thousand per cent., and to satisfy its
need, to produce the labor that operated its machines,
there came into existence a hapless race of men who
bred their kind for its service, and whose little ones
were its prey almost from their cradles. Then the
infamy became too great, and the law, the voice of
the people, so long guiltily silent, was lifted in behalf
of those who had no helper. The Accumulation came
under control, for the first time, and could no longer
work its slaves twenty hours a day amid perils to life
and limb from its machinery and in conditions that
forbade them decency and morality. The time of a
hundred and a thousand per cent, passed; but still
the Accumulation demanded immunity and impunity,
and in spite of its conviction of the enormities it had
practiced, it declared itself the only means of civiliza-
tion and progress. It began to give out that it was (
timid, though its history was full of the boldest frauds '■
and crimes, and it threatened to withdraw itself if it |
were ruled or even crossed ; and again it had its way,
and we seemed to prosper more and more. The land
was filled with cities where the rich flaunted their
splendor in palaces, and the poor swarmed in squalid
tenements. The country was drained of its life and /

262 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

force, to feed the centers of commerce and industry.
The whole land was bound together with a network
of iron roads that linked the factories and foundries
to the fields and mines, and blasted the landscape
with the enterprise that spoiled the lives of men.

" Then, all at once, when its work seemed perfect
and its dominion sure, the Accumulation was stricken
with consciousness of the lie always at its heart. It
had hitherto cried out for a freie field and no favor,
for unrestricted competition ; but, in truth, it had
never prospered, except as a monopoly. Whenever
and wherever competition had play, there had been
nothing but disaster to the rival enterprises, till one
rose over the rest. Then there was prosperity for
that one.

"The Accumulation began to act upon its new
consciousness. The iron roads united ; the warring
industries made peace, each kind under a single lead-
ership. Monopoly, not competition, was seen to be
the beneficent means of distributing the favors and
blessings of the Accumulation to mankind. But as
before, there was alternately a glut and dearth of
things, and it often happened that when starving men
went ragged through the streets, the storehouses were

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRTJRIA. 263

piled full of rotting harvests that the farmers toiled
from dawn till dusk to grow, and the warehouses fed
the moth with the stuffs that the operative had woven
his life into at his loom. Then followed, with a blind
and mad succession, a time of famine, when money
could not buy the superabundance that vanished, none
knew how or why.

" The money itself vanished from time to time, and
disappeared into the vaults of the Accumulation, for
no better reason than that for which it poured itself
out at other times. Our theory was that the people,
that is to say the government of the people, made the
people^s money, but, as a matter of fact, the Accumu-
lation made it, and controlled it, and juggled with it ;
and now you saw it, and now you did not see it.
The government made gold coins, but the people had
nothing but the paper money that the Accumulation
made. But whether there was scarcity or plenty, the
failures went on with a continuous ruin that nothing
could check, while our larger economic life proceeded
in a series of violent shocks, which we called
financial panics, followed by long periods of exhaus-
tion and recuperation. There was no law in our
economy, but as the Accumulation had never cared

264 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

for the nature of law, it did not trouble itself for its
name in our order of things. It had always bought
the law it needed for its own use, first through the
I voter at the polls in the more primitive days, and
(^ then, as civilization advanced, in the legislatures and
the courts. But the corruption even of these methods
was far surpassed when the era of consolidation came,
and the necessity for statutes and verdicts and
decisions became more stringent. Then we had such
a burlesque of '' —

" Look here ! " a sharp nasal voice snarled across
the rich, full pipe of the Altrurian, and we all
instantly looked there. The voice came from an old
farmer, holding himself stiflBy up, with his hands in
his pockets and his lean frame bent toward the
speaker. " When are you goin' to get to Altrury ?
We know all about Ameriky."

He sat down again, and it was a moment before
the crowd caught on. Then a yell of delight and a
roar of volleyed laughter went up from the lower
classes, in which, I am sorry to say, my friend, the
banker, joined, so far as the laughter was concerned.
•* Grood ! That's it ! First-rate ! " came from a hundred
vulgar throats.

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 265

" Isn't it a perfect shame ? " Mrs. Makely de-
manded. " I think some of you gentlemen ought to
say something ! What will Mr. Homos think of our
civilization if we let such interruptions go unre-
buked ! "

She was sitting between the banker and myself,
and her indignation made him laugh more and more.
" Oh, it serves him right," he said. Don't you see
that he is hoist with his own petard ? Let him alone.
He's in the hands of his friends."

The Altrurian waited for the tumult to die away,
and then he said gently : •' I don't understand."

The old farmer jerked himself to his feet again :
" It's like this : I paid my dolla' to hear about a
country where there wa'n't no co'perations, nor no
monop'lies, nor no buyin' up cou'ts ; and I ain't
agoin' to have no allegory shoved down my throat,
instead of a true history, noways. I know all about
how it is here. Fi'st, run their line through your
backya'd, and then kill off your cattle, and keep
kerryin' on it up from cou't to cou't, till there ain't
hide or hair on 'em left — "

" Oh, set down, set down ! Let the man go on !
He'll make it all right with you," one of the construe-

266 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

tion gang called out ; but the farmer stood his ground,
and I could hear him through the laughing and shout-
ing, keep saying something from time to time, about
not wanting to pay no dolla' for no talk about co'pera-
tions and monop'lies that we had right under our own
noses the whole while, and you might say, in your
very bread troughs ; till, at last, I saw Reuben Camp
make his way towards him, and, after an energetic
expostulation, turn to leave him again.

Then he faltered out, " I guess it's all right," and
dropped out of sight in the group he had risen from.
I fancied his wife scolding him there, and all but
shaking him in public.

" I should be very sorry," the Altrurian proceeded,
" to have anyone believe that I have not been giving
you a bona fide account of conditions in my country
before the Evolution, when we first took the name of
Altruria in our great, peaceful campaign against the
Accumulation. As for offering you any allegory or
travesty of your own conditions, I will simply say
that I do not know them well enough to do so intelli-
gently. But, whatever they are, God forbid that the
likeness which you seem to recognize should ever go
80 far as the desperate state of things which we

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRTJRIA. 267

finally reached. I will not trouble you with details ;
in fact, I have been afraid that I had already treated
of our affairs too abstractly ; but, since your own ex-
perience furnishes you the means of seizing my mean-
ing, I will go on as before.

" You will understand me when I explain that the
Accumulation had not erected itself into the sov-
ereignty with us unopposed. The workingmen who
suffered most from its oppression had early begun to
band themselves against it, with the instinct of self-
preservation, first trade by trade, and art by art, and
then in congresses and federations of the trades and
arts, until finally they enrolled themselves in one vast ^ K2> Uf
union, which included all the workingmen whom
their necessity or their interest did not leave on the
side of the Accumulation. This beneficent and gen-
erous association of the weak for the sake of the
weakest did not accomplish itself fully till the baleful
instinct of the Accumulation had reduced the mo-
nopolies to one vast monopoly, till the stronger had
devoured the weaker among its members, and the
supreme agent stood at the head of our affairs, in
everything but name, our imperial ruler. We had
hugged so long the delusion of each man for himself,

268 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

that we had suffered all realty to be taken from us.
The Accumulation owned the land as well as the
mines under it and the shops over it ; the Accumula-
tion owned the seas and the ships that sailed the
seas, and the fish that swam in their depths ; it owned
transportation and distribution, and the wares and
products that were to be carried to and fro ; and by a
logic irresistible and inexorable, the Accumulation
was, and we were not.

" But the Accumulation, too, had forgotten some-
thing. It had found it so easy to buy legislatures
and courts, that it did not trouble itself about the
polls. It left us the suffrage, and let us amuse our-
selves with the periodical election of the political clay
images which it manipulated and moulded to any
shape and effect, at its pleasure. The Accumulation
knew that it was the sovereignty, whatever figure-head
we called president, or governor, or mayor : we had
other names for these officials, but I use their ana-
logues for the sake of clearness, and I liope my good
friend over there will not think I am still talking
about America."

•* No," the old farmer called back, without rising,
" we hain't got there, quite, yit."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 269

" No hurry," said a trainman. " All in good time.
Go on !" he called to the Altrurian.

The Altrurian resumed :

" There had been, from the beginning, an almost
ceaseless struggle between the Accumulation and the
proletariate. The Accumulation always said that it
was the best friend of the proletariate, and it de-
nounced, through the press which it controlled, the
proletarian leaders who taught that it was the enemy
of the proletariat, and who stirred up strikes and
tumults of all sorts, for higher wages and fewer hours.
But the friend of the proletrariat, whenever occasion
served, treated the proletariat like a deadly enemy.
In seasons of over-production, as it was called, it
locked the workmen out, or laid them off, and left
their families to starve, or ran light work, and claimed
the credit of public benefactors for running at all. It
sought every chance to reduce wages; it had laws
passed to forbid or cripple the workmen in their
strikes ; and the judges convicted them of conspiracy,
and wrested the statutes to their hurt, in cases where
there had been no thought of embarrassing them, even
among the legislators. God forbid that you should
ever come to such a pass in America ; but, if you ever

270 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

should, God grant that you may find your way out as
simply as we did at last, when freedom had perished
in everything but name among us, and justice had
become a mockery.

" The Accumulation had advanced so smoothly, so
lightly, in all its steps to the supreme power, and had
at last so thoroughly quelled the uprisings of the pro-
letariat, that it forgot one thing : it forgot the
despised and neglected suffrage. The ballot, because
it had been so easy to annul its effect, had been left in
the people's hands ; and when, at last, the leaders of
the proletariat ceased to counsel strikes, or any form
of resistance to the Accumulation that could be tor-
mented into the likeness of insurrection against the
government, and began to urge them to attack it in
the political way, the deluge that swept the Accumu-
lation out of existence came trickling and creeping
over the land. It appeared first in the country, a
spring from the ground ; then it gathered head in the
villages ; then it swelled to a torrent in the cities. I
cannot stay to trace its course ; but suddenly, one day,
when the Accumulation's abuse of a certain power
became too gross, it was voted out of that power.
You will perhaps be interested to know that it was

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 271

with the telegraphs that the rebellion against the Ac-
cumulation began, and the government was forced by
the overwhelming majority which the proletariat sent
to our parliament, to assume a function which the
Accumulation had impudently usurped. Then the
transportation of smaller and more perishable wares" —
" Yes," a voice called, " express business. Go on."
" Was legislated a function of the post office," the
Altrurian went on. "Then all transportation was
taken into the hands of the political government,
which had always been accused of great corruption in
its administration, but which showed itself immacu-
lately pure, compared with the Accumulation. The
common ownership of mines necessarily followed, with
an allotment of lands to anyone who wished to live
by tilling the land ; but not a foot of the land was
remitted to private hands for purposes of selfish
pleasure or the exclusion of any other from the land-
scape. As all businesses had been gathered into the
grasp of the Accumulation, and the manufacture of
everything they used and the production of everything
that they ate was in the control of the Accumulation,
its transfer to the government was the work of a

sino-le clause in the statute.
^ 18

272 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" The Accumulation, which had treated the first
menaces of resistance with contempt, awoke to its
peril too late. When it turned to wrest the suffrage
from the proletariat, at the first election where it at-
tempted to make head against them, it was simply
snowed under, as your picturesque phrase is. The
Accumulation had no voters, except the few men at
its head, and the creatures devoted to it by interest
and ignorance. It seemed, at one moment, as if it
would offer an armed resistance to the popular will,
but, happily, that moment of madness passed, f Our
Evolution was accomplished without a drop of blood-
shed, and the first great political brotherhood, the
commonwealth of Altruria, was founded. }

" I wish that I had time to go into a study of some
of the curious phases of the transformation from a
civility in which the people lived upon each other to
one in which they lived for each other. There is a
famous passage in the inaugural message of our first
Altrurian president, which compares the new civic
consciousness with that of a disembodied spirit re-
leased to the life beyond this and freed from all the
selfish cares and greeds of the fiesh. But perhaps I
shall give a suflBciently clear notion of the triumph of

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 273

the change among us, when I say that within half a
decade after the fall of the old plutocratic oligarchy
one of the chief directors of the Accumulation pub-
licly expressed his gratitude to God that the Accumu-
lation had passed away forever. You will realize the
importance of such an expression in recalling the
declarations some of your slaveholders have made
since the civil war, that they would not have slavery
restored for any earthly consideration.

" But now, after this preamble, which has been so
much longer than I meant it to be, how shall I give
you a sufficiently just conception of the existing Altru-
ria, the actual state from which I come ? "

"Yes," came the nasal of the old farmer, again,
" that's what we are here fur. I wouldn't give a cop-
per to know all you went through beforehand. It's
too dumn like what we have been through ourselves,
as fur as heard from."

A shout of laughter went up from most of the
crowd, but the Altrurian did not seem to see any fun
in it.

" Well," he resumed, " I will tell you, as well as I
can, what Altruria is like, but, in the first place, you
will have to cast out of your minds all images of civil-

274 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

ization with which your experience has filled them.
For a time, the shell of the old Accumulation re-
mained for our social habitation, and we dwelt in the
old competitive and monopolistic forms after the life
had gone out of them. That is, we continued to live
in populous cities, and we toiled to heap up riches for
the moth to corrupt, and we slaved on in making
utterly useless things, merely because we had the habit
of making them to sell. For a while we made the old
sham things, which pretended to be useful things and
were worse than the confessedly useless things. I
will give you an illustration from the trades, which you
will all understand. The proletariat, in the competi-
tive and monopolistic time, used to make a kind of
shoes for the proletariat, or the women of the prole-
tariat, which looked like fine shoes of the best quality.
It took just as much work to make these shoes as to
make the best fine shoes ; but they were shams through
and through. They wore out in a week, and the peo-
ple called them, because they were bought fresh for
every Sunday " —

" Sat'd'y night shoes," screamed the old farmer.
" I know 'em. My gals buy 'em. Half dolla' a pai',
and not wo'th the money."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 275

"Well," said the Altrurian, "they were a cheat
and a lie, in every way, and under the new system it
was not possible, when public attention was called to
the fact, to continue the falsehood they embodied. As
soon as the Saturday night shoe realized itself to the
public conscience, an investigation began, and it was
found that the principle of the Saturday night shoe
underlay half our industries and made half the work
that was done. Then an immense reform took place.
We renounced, in the most solemn convocation of the
whole economy, the principle of the Saturday night
shoe, and those who had spent their lives in producing
sham shoes — "

"Yes," said the professor, rising from his seat near
us, and addressing the speaker, " I shall be very glad
to know what became of the worthy and industrious
operatives who were thrown out of employment by
this explosion of economic virtue."

" Why," the Altrurian replied, " they were set to
work making honest shoes; and as it took no more
time to make a pair of honest shoes which lasted a
year, than it took to make a pair of dishonest shoes
that lasted a week, the amount of labor in shoemak-
ing was at once enormously reduced."

276 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Yes," said the professor, " I understand that.
What became of the shoemakers ? "

" They joined the vast army of other laborers who
had been employed, directly or indirectly, in the fab-
rication of fradulent wares. These shoemakers —
^^ lasters, buttonholers, binders, and so on — no longer

> wore themselves out over their machines. One hour

suflSced where twelve hours were needed before, and
the operatives were released to the happy labor of the
fields, where no one with us toils killingly, from dawn
till dusk, but does only as much work as is needed to
keep the body in health. We had a continent to
refine and beautify ; we had climates to change, and
seasons to modify, a whole system of meteorology to
readjust, and the public works gave employment to
the multitudes emancipated from the soul-destroying
service of shams. I can scarcely give you a notion of
the vastness of the improvements undertaken and car-
ried through, or still in process of accomplishment.
But a single one will, perhaps, afford a sufficient illus-
tration. Our southeast coast, from its vicinity to the

-- — ■ , .^

pole, had always suffered from a wmter ot^ antarctic

rigor I but our first president conceived the plan o?
cutting off a peninsula, which kept the equatorial

'W

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 277

current from making in to our shores ; and the work
was begun in his term, though the entire strip, twenty-
miles in width and ninety-three in length, was not
severed before the end of the first Altrurian decade.
Since that time the whole region of our southeastern
coast has enjoyed the climate of your Mediterrean
countries.

"It was not only the makers of fradulent things
who were released to these useful and wholesome
labors, but those who had spent themselves in con-
triving ugly and stupid and foolish things were set
free to the public employments. The multitude of
these monstrosities and iniquities was as great as that
of the shams " —

Here I lost some words, for the professor leaned
over and whispered to me : "He has got that out of
William Morris. Depend upon it, the man is a hum-
bug. He is not an Altrurian at all."

I confess that my heart misgave me ; but I signalled
the professor to be silent, and again gave the Altrurian
— if he was an Altrurian — my whole attention.

D '" ■

i^'

XII.

"And so," the Altrurian continued, "when the

labor of the community was emancipated from the

bondage of the false to the free service of the true, it

was also, by an inevitable implication, dedicated to

beauty and rescued from the old slavery to the ugly,

the stupid and the trivial. The things that was honest

(*rv ^C^^and useful became, b^;Jhe_qperaJdpB_M .a natural law,

^^ ^ a beautiful thing. Once we had not time enough to

make things beautiful, we were so overworked in

making false and hideous things to sell ; but now we

had all the time there was, and a glad emulation arose

1 among the trades and occupations to the end that

. everything done should be done finely as well as done

honestly. The artist, the man of genius, who worked

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 279

from the love of his work became the normal man,
and in the measure of his ability and of his calling
each wrought in the spirit of the artist. We got back
the pleasure of doing a thing beautifully, which was
God's primal blessing upon all his working children,
but which we had lost in the horrible days of our
need and greed. There is not a working man within
the sound of my voice, but has known this divine
delight, and would gladly know it always if he only
had the time. Well, now we had the time, the Evolu-
tion had given us the time, and in all Altruria there
was not a furrow driven or a swath mown, not a
hammer struck on house or on ship, not a stitch sewn
or a stone laid, not a line written or a sheet printed,
not a temple raised or an engine built, but it was
done with an eye to beauty as well as to use.

" As soon as we were freed from the necessity of
preying upon one another, we found that there was no
hurry. The good work would wait to be well done ;
and one of the earliest effects of the Evolution was
the disuse of the swift trains which had traversed the
continent, night and day, that one man might over-
reach another, or make haste to undersell his rival, or
seize some advantage of him, or plot some profit to

280 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

his loss. Nine-tenths of the railroads, which in the
old times had ruinously competed, and then in the
hands of the Accumulation had been united to impov-
erish and oppress the people, fell into disuse. The
commonwealth operated the few lines that were
necessary for the collection of materials and the dis-
tribution of manufactures, and for pleasure travel
and the affairs of state : but the roads that had been
built to invest capital, or parallel other roads, or 'make
work,' as it was called, or to develop resources, or
boom localities, were suffered to fall into ruin ; the
rails were stripped from the landscape, which they
had bound as with shackles, and the road-beds became
highways for the use of kindly neighborhoods, or
nature recovered them wholly and hid the memory of
their former abuse in grass and flowers and wild vines.
The ugly towns that they had forced into being, as
A^ (^Frankenstein was fashioned, from the materials of the
charnel, and that had no life in or from the good of
the community, soon tumbled into decay. The ad-
ministration used parts of them in the construction of
the villages in which the Altrurians now mostly live ;
but generally these towns were built of materials so
fraudulent, in form so vile, that it was judged best to

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 281

burn them. In this way their sites were at once
purified and obliterated.

" We had, of course, a great many large cities
under the old egoistic conditions, which increased
and fattened upon the country, and fed their cancer-
ous life with fresh infusions of its blood. We had
several cities of half a million, and one of more than a
million ; we had a score of them with a population of
a hundred thousand or more. We were very proud
of them, and vaunted them as a proof of our un-
paralleled prosperity, though really they never were
anything but congeries of millionaires and the
wretched creatures who served them and supplied
them. Of course, there was everywhere the appear-
ance of enterprise and activity, but it meant final loss
for the great mass of the business men, large and
small, and final gain for the millionaires. These, and
their parasites dwelt together, the rich starving the
poor and the poor plundering and mis-governing the r\u^ o^
rich ; and it was the intolerable suffering in the cities *■ -'^^^ ■
that chiefly hastened the fall of the old Accumulation,
and the rise of the Commonwealth. ^

"Almost from the moment of the Evolution the
competitive and monopolistic centers of population

282 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

began to decline. In the clear light of the new order it
was seen that they were not fit dwelling-places for men,
either in the complicated and luxurious palaces where
the rich fenced themselves from their kind, or in the
vast tenements, towering height upon height, ten and
twelve stories up, where the swarming poor festered
in vice and sickness and famine. If I were to tell
you of the fashion of those cities of our egoistic
epoch, how the construction was one error from the
first, and every correction of an error bred a new
defect, I should make you laugh, I should make you
weep. We let them fall to ruin as quickly as they
would, and their sites are still so pestilential, after the
lapse of centuries, that travellers are publicly guarded
against them. Ravening beasts and poisonous reptiles
lurk in those abodes of the riches and_J;he poverty
that are no longer known to our life.l A part of one
of the less malarial of the old cities, however, is main-
tained by the commonwealth in the form of its
prosperity, and is studied by antiquarians for the
instruction, and by moralists for the admonition it
1 affords. A section of a street is exposed, and you see
the foundations of the houses; you see the filthy drains
lat belched into the common sewers, trapped and re-

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 283

trapped to keep the poison gases down ; you see the ^
sewers that rolled their loathsome tides under the
streets, amidst a tangle of gas pipes, steam pipes, h"

water pipes, telegraph wires, electric lighting wires,
electric motor wires and grip-cables ; all without a plan,
but make-shifts, expedients, devices, to repair and
evade the fundamental mistake of having any such
cities at all.

" There are now no cities in Altruria, in your mean- ]
ing, but there arc capitals, one for each of the Regions
of our country, and one for the whole commonwealth.
These capitals are for the transaction of public affairs,
in which every citizen of Altruria is schooled, and ) ■ w''
they are the residences of the administrative officials,
who are alternated every year, from the highest to the
lowest. A public employment with us is of no >
greater honor or profit than any other, for with our
absolute economic equality, there can be no ambition,
and there is no opportunity for one citizen to out-
shine another. But as the capitals are the centers of ,
all the arts, which we consider the chief of our public j
■ affairs, they are oftenest frequented by poets, actors,
painters, sculptors, musicians and architects. We

reg^i^ all aftists, who are m'a^'BOTt-eFeatara,_jaa-iJ^e

y V; 284 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

c^ -^ I human type which is likest the divine, and we try to
C0Tifcmnn3Tn''n;rhDt6"lTrduffiariif to the artistic tem-
^rament. Even in the labors of the field and shop,
which are obligatory upon all, we study the inspira-
tions of this temperament, and in the voluntary
pursuits we allow it full control. Each, in these,
follows his fancy as to what he shall do, and when he
shall do it, or whether he shall do anything at all. In
the capitals are the universities, theaters, galleries, mu-
seums, cathedrals, laboratories and conservatories, and
the appliances of every art and science, as well as the
administration buildings ; and beauty as well as use is
studied in every edifice. Our capitals are as clean
and quiet and healthful as the country, and these
advantages are secured simply by the elimination of
j the horse, an animal which we should be as much sur-
prised to find in the streets of a town as the plesio-
saurus or the pterodactyl. All transportation in the
capitals, whether for pleasure or business, is by
electricity, and swift electrical expresses connect the
capital of each region with the villages which radiate
from it to the cardinal points. These expresses run at
N^ the rate of a hundred and fifty miles an hour, and
they enable the artist, the scientist, the literary man, of

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 285

the remotest hamlet, to visit the capital (when he is
not actually resident there in some public use) every
day, after the hours of the obligatory industries ; or if
he likes, he may remain there a whole week or fort-
night, giving six hours a day instead of three to the
obligatories, until the time is made up. In case of
very evident merit, or for the purpose of allowing him
to complete some work requiring continuous applica-
tion, a vote of the local agents may release him from
the obligatories indefinitely. Generally, however, our
artists prefer not to ask this, but avail themselves of
the stated means we have of allowing them to work at
the obligatories, and get the needed exercise and
variety of occupation, in the immediate vicinity of the
capital.

" We do not think it well to connect the hamlets on
the different lines of radiation from the capital,
except by the good country roads which traverse each
region in every direction. The villages are mainly
inhabited by those who prefer a rural life ; they are
farming villages ; but in Altruria it can hardly be said
that one man is more a farmer than another. We do
not like to distinguish men by their callings ; we do
not speak of the poet This or the shoemaker That, for

286 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

me
(^oblig
tane

the poet may very likely be a shoemaker irr-tlie
obligatories, "^d the shoemaker a poet in the volun-\
^N If ix can be said that one occupatioirlis
honored above another with us, it is that which we
all share, and that is the cultivation of the earth. We
believe that this, when not followed slavishly, or for
gain, brings man into the closest relations to the deity,
through a grateful sense of the divine bounty, and
that it not only awakens a natural piety in him, but
that it endears to the worker that piece of soil which
he tills, and so strengthens his love of home. The
home is the very heart of the Altrurian system, and
we do not think it well that people should be away
from their homes very long or very often. In the com-
petitive and monopolistic times men spent half their
days in racing back and forth across our continent ;
families were scattered by the chase for fortune, and
there was a perpetual paying and repaying of visits.
One-half the income of those railroads which we let
fall into disuse came from the ceaseless unrest. Now
a man is bom and lives and dies among his own kin-
dred, and the sweet sense of neighborhood, of brother-
hood, which blessed the golden age of the first
Christian republic is ours again. Every year the

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 287

people of each Region meet one another on Evolution

day, in the Regionic capital ; once in four years they

all visit the national capital. There is no danger of

the decay of patriotism among us; our country is our '^ij^d

mother, and we love her as it is impossible to love the L^J^t>^

stepmother that a competitive or monopolistic nation ^ ""

must be to its citizens.

" I can only touch upon this feature and that of our
system, as I chance to think of it. If any of you are
curious about others, I shall be glad to answer
questions as well as I can. We have, of course," the
Altrurian proceeded, after little indefinite pause, to let
any speak who liked, " no money in your sense.
As the whole people control affairs, no man works for
another, aud no man pays another. Every one does
his share of labor, and receives his share of food,
clothing and shelter, which is neither more nor less
than another's. If you can imagine the justice and
impartiality of a well-ordered family, you can conceive
of the social and economic life of Altruria. We are,
properly speaking, a family rather than a nation
like yours.

" Of course, we are somewhat favored by our

insular, or continental position ; but I do not know
19

288 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA,

that we are more so than you are. Certainly, how
over, we are self-sufficing in a degree unknown to
most European countries ; and we have withm our
borders the materials of every comfort and the
resources of every need. We have no commerce with
the egoistic world, as we call that outside, and I
believe that I am the first Altrurian to visit foreign
countries avowedly in my national character, though
we have always had emissaries living abroad incog-
nito. I hope that I may say without offense that
they find it a sorrowful exile, and that the reports of
the egoistic world, with its wars, its bankruptcies, its
civic commotions and its social unhappiness, do not
make us discontented with our own condition.
Before the Evolution we had completed the round of
your inventions and discoveries, impelled by the force
J,,- that drives you on ; and we have since disused most
>' .^^^' of them as idle and unfit. But we profit, now and
\ then, by the advances you make in science, for we
I are passionately devoted to the study of the natural
laws, open or occult, under which all men have their
being. Occasionally an emissary returns with a sum
of money, and explains to the students of the national
university the processes by which it is lost and won ;

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 289

and at a certain time there was a movement for its
introduction among us, not for its use as you know
it, but for a species of counters in games of chance.
It was considered, however, to contain an element of
danger, and the scheme was discouraged.

" Nothing amuses and puzzles our people more than
the accounts our emissaries give of the changes of
fashion in the outside world, and of the ruin of soul
and body which the love of dress often works. Our
own dress, for men and for women, is studied in one
ideal of use and beauty, from the antique ; caprice and
vagary in it would be thought an effect of vulgar van-
ity. Nothing is worn that is not simple and honest
in texture ; we do not know whether a thing is cheap
or dear, except as it is easy or hard to come by, and
that which is hard to come by is forbidden as waste-
ful and foolish. The community builds the dwellings
of the community, and these, too, are of a classic sim-
plicity, though always beautiful and fit in form ; the
splendors of the arts are lavished upon the public
edifices, which we all enjoy in common.

" Isn't this the greatest rehash of Utopia, New / -^
Atlantis, and City of the Sun, that you ever im- /
agined ? " the professor whispered across me to the

290 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA

banker. " The man is a fraud, and a very bungling
fraud at that."

"Well, you must expose him, when he gets
through," the banker whispered back.

But the professor could not wait. lie got upon his
feet, and called out ; " May I ask the gentleman from
Altruria a question ? "

" Certainly," the Altrurian blandly assented.

" Make it short ! " Reuben Camp's voice broke in,
impatiently. " AVe didn't come here to listen to your
questions."

The professor contemptously ignored him. " I
suppose you occasionally receive emissaries from, as
well as send them to the world outside ? "

^ Yes, now and then castaways land on our coasts,
and ships out of their reckonings put in at our ports,
for water or provision."

" And how are they pleased with your system ? "

" Why, I cannot better answer than by saying that
they mostly refuse to leave us."

" Ah, just as Bacon reports ! " cried the professor.

"You mean in the New Atlantis?" returned the
Altrurian. " Yes ; it is astonishing how well Bacon
in that book, and Sir Thomas More in his Utopia,

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 291

have divined certain phases of our civilization and /
polity."

" I think he rather has you, professor," the banker X
whispered, with a laugh. \

" But all those inspired visionaries," the Altrurian
continued, while the professor sat grimly silent, watch-
ing for another chance, *'who have borne testimony
of us in their dreams, conceived of states perfect with-i?j
out the discipline of a previous competitive condition.'*
What I thought, however, might specially interest you
Americans in Altruria is the fact that our economy
was evolved from one so like that in which you actu-
ally have your being. I had even hoped you might
feel that, in all these points of resemblance, American
prophesies another Altruria. I know that to some of
you all that I have told of my country will seem a
baseless fabric, with no more foundation, in fact, than
More's fairy tale of another land where men dealt
kindly and justly by one another, and dwelt, a whole
nation, in the unity and equality of a family. But I
why should not a part of that fable have come true in
our polity, as another part of it has come true in
yours? AVhen Sir Thomas More wrote that book, he
noted with abhorence the monstrous injustice of the

292 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

fact that men were hanged for small thefts in Eng-
land ; and in the preliminary conversation between its
characters he denounced the killing of men for any
sort of thefts. Now you no longer put men to death
for theft ; you look back upon that cruel code of your
mother England with an abhorrence as great as his
own. We, for our part, who have realized the Uto-
pian dream of brotherly equality, look back with the
same abhorrence upon a state where some were rich and
some poor, some taught and some untaught, some high
and some low, and the hardest toil often failed to
supply a sufficiency of the food which luxury wasted
in its riots. That state seems as atrocious to us as
the state which hanged a man for stealing a loaf of
bread seems to you.

" But we do not regret the experience of competition
and monopoly. They taught us some things m the
operation of the industries. The labor-saving inven-
tions which the Accumulation perverted to money-
making, we have restored to the use intended by their
inventors and the Creator of their inventors. After
serving the advantage of socializing the industries
which the Accumulation effected for its own purposes,
we continued the work in large mills and shops, in the

^'1

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 293

interest of the workers, whom we wished to guard
against the evil effects of solitude. But our mills and
shops are beautiful as well as useful. They look like '' \^
temples, and they are temples, dedicated to that sym-
pathy between the divine and human which expresses
itself in honest and exquisite workmanship. They rise
amid leafy boscages beside the streams, which form
their only power : for we have disused steam altogether,
with all the offenses to the eye and ear which its use
brought into the world. Our life is so simple and our
needs are so few that the handwork of the primitive
toilers could easily supply our wants ; but machinery
works so much more thoroughly and beautifully, that
we have in great measure retained it. Only, the
machines that were once the workman's enemies and
masters are now their friends and servants ; and if any
man chooses to work alone with his own hands, the
state will buy what he makes at the same price that
it sells the wares made collectively. This secures
every right of individuality.

" The farm work, as well as the mill work and the
shop work, is done by companies of workers; and
there is nothing of that loneliness in our woods and
fields which, I understand, is the cause of so much in-

294 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

sanity among you. It is not good for man to be
V. alone, was the first thought of his Creator when he
considered him, and we act upon this truth in every-
thing. The privacy of the family is sacredly guarded
in essentials, but the social instinct is so highly devel-
oped with us that we like to eat together in large
refectories, and we meet constantly to argue and
dispute on questions of a}sthetics and metaphysics.
We do not, perhaps, read so many books as you do,
for most of our reading, when not for special research,
but for culture and entertainment, is done by public
readers, to large groups of listeners. We have no
social meetings which are not free to all; and we
encourage joking and the friendly give and take of
witty encounters."

" A little hint from Sparta," suggested the professor.

The banker leaned over to whisper to me, *'From
what I have seen of your friend when offered a piece
of American humor, I should fancy the Altrurian arti-
cle was altogether different. Upon the whole I would
rather not be present at one of their witty encounters,
if I were obliged to stay it out."

The Altrurian had paused to drink a glass of water,
and now he went on. "But we try, in everything

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 295

that does not inconvenience or injure others, to let
everyone live the life he likes best. If a man prefers
to dwell apart and have his meals in private for him-
self alone, or for his family, it is freely permitted;
only, he must not expect to be served as in public,
where service is one of the voluntaries ; private service
is not permitted ; those wishing to live alone must wait
upon themselves, cook their own food and care for
their own tables. Very few, however, wish to with-
draw from the public life, for most of the discussions
and debates take place at our midday meal, which falls
at the end of the obligatory labors, and is prolonged
indefinitely, or as long as people like to chat and joke,
or listen to the reading of some pleasant book.

" In Altruria there is no hurry, for no one wishes to
outstrip another, or in any wise surpass him. We are
all assured of enough, and are forbidden any and every
sort of superfluity. If anyone, after the obligatories,
wishes to be entirely idle, he may be so, but I cannot
now think of a single person without some voluntary
occupation ; doubtless there are such persons, but I do
not know them. It used to be said, in the old times,
that ' it was human nature ' to shirk, and malinger and
loaf, but we have found that it is no such thing. We

296 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

have found that it is human nature to work cheerfully,
willingly, eagerly, at the tasks which all share for the
supply of the common necessities. In like manner we
have found out that it is not human nature to hoard
and grudge, but that when the fear, and even the im-
agination, of want is taken away, it is human nature
to give and to help generously. We used to say, ' A
man will lie, or a man will cheat in his own interest ;
that is human nature,' but that is no longer human
nature with us, perhaps because no man has any
interest to serve ; he has only the interests of others
to serve, while others serve his. It is in nowise pos-
sible for the individual to separate his good from the
common good ; he is prosperous and happy only as all
the rest are so ; and therefore it is not human nature
with us for anyone to lie in wait to betray another
or seize an advantage. That would be ungentlemanly,
and in Altruria every man is a gentleman, and every
woman a lady. If you will excuse me here, for being
so frank, I would like to say something by way of
illustration, which may be offensive if you take it
personally."

He looked at our little group, as if he were address-
ing himself more especially to us, and the banker

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 297

called out jollily : " Go on ! I guess we can stand it,"
and " Go ahead ! " came from all sides, from all kinds
of listeners.

" It is merely this : that as we look back at the old
competitive conditions we do not see how any man
could be a gentleman in them, since a gentleman must
think first of others, and these conditions compelled
every man to think first of himself."

There was a silence broken by some conscious and
hardy laughter, while we each swallowed this pill as
we could.

'' What are competitive conditions ? " Mrs. Makely
demanded of me.

" Well, oui's are competitive conditions," I said.

" Very well, then," she returned, " I don't think
Mr. Ilomos is much of a gentleman to say such a
thing to an American audience. Or, wait a moment !
Ask him if the same rule applies to women ! "

I rose, strengthened by the resentment I felt, and
said, " Do I understand that in your former competi-
tive conditions it was also impossible for a woman to
be a lady ? "

The professor gave me an applausive nod as I sat
down. " I envy you the chance of that little dig,"
he whispered.

298 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

The Altrurian was thoughtful a moment, and then
he answered : " No, I should not say it was. From
what we know historically of those conditions in our
country, it appears that the great mass of women were
not directly affected by them. They constituted an
altruristic dominion of the egoistic empire and
except as they were tainted by social or worldly am-
bitions, it was possible for every woman to be a lady,
even in competitive conditions. Her instincts were
unselfish, and her first thoughts were nearly always
of others."

Mrs. Makely jumped to her feet, and clapped vio-
lently with her fan on the palm of her left hand.
" Three cheers for Mr. Homos ! " she shrieked, and
all the women took up the cry, supported by all the
natives and the construction gang. I fancied these
fellows gave their support largely in a spirit of bur-
lesque ; but they gave it robustly, and from that time
on, Mrs. Makely led the applause, and they roared in
after her.

It is impossible to follow closely the course of the
Altrurian's account of his country, which grew more
and more incredible as he went on, and implied every
insultinir criticism of ours. Some one asked him

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 299

about war in Altruria, and he said, " The very name
of our country implies the absence of war. At the
time of the Evohition our country bore to the rest of
our continent the same relative proportion that your
country bears to your continent. The egoistic nations /
to the north and the south of us entered into an offen- p
sive and defensive alliance to put down the new
altruistic commonwealth, and declared war against us.
Their forces were met at the frontier by our entire
population in arms, and full of the martial spirit bred of
the constant hostilities of the competitive and monop-
listic epoch just ended. Negotiations began in the
face of the imposing demonstration we made, and we
were never afterward molested by our neighbors, who
finally yielded to the spectacle of our civilization and
united their political and social fate with ours. At
present, our wholfi-iiaiitinent is Altrurian. For a long
time we kept up a system of coast defenses, but it is
also a long time since we abandoned these ; for it "Is a
maxim with us that where every citizen's life is a
pledge of the public safety, that country can never be
in danger of foreign enemies.

" In this, as in all other things, we believe ourselves J
the true followers of Christ, whose doctrine we seek / ^

300 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

to make our life, as He made it His. We have sev-
eral forms of ritual, but no form of creed, and our
religious differences may be said to be aesthetic and
j temperamental rather than theological and essential.
We have no denominations, for we fear in this as in
other matters to give names to things lest we should
cling to the names instead of the things. We love
the realities, and for this reason we look at the life of
a man rather than his profession for proof that he is
a religious man.

" I have been several times asked, during my so-
journ among you, what are the sources of compassion,
of sympathy, of humanity, of charity with us, if we
have not only no want, or fear of want, but not even
any economic inequality. I suppose this is because
you are so constantly struck by the misery arising
from economic inequality, and want, or the fear of
want, among yourselves, that you instinctively look in
that direction. But have you ever seen sweeter com-
passion, tenderer sympathy, warmer humanity, lieav-
enlier charity, than that shown in the family, where
all are economically equal, and no one can want while
any other has to give ? Altruria, I say again, is a
family, and as we are mortal, we are still subject to

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 301

those nobler sorrows which God has appointed to
men, and which are so different from the squalid
accidents that they have made for themselves. Sick-
ness and death call out the most angelic ministeries of
love ; and those who wish to give themselves to others
may do so without hindrance from those cares, and
even those duties, resting upon men where each must
look out first for himself and for his own. Oh, he-
lieve me, believe me, you can know nothing of the
divine rapture of self-sacrifice while you must dread
the sacrifice of another in it ! You are not free^ as
we are, to do everything for others, for it is your dutij
to do rather for those of your own household !

" There is something," he continued, " which I
hardly know how to speak of," and here we all began
to prick our ears. I prepared myself as well as I
could for another affront, though I shuddered when
the banker hardily called out : " Don't hesitate to say
anything you wish, Mr. Ilomos. I, for one, should
like to hear you express yourself fully."

It was always the unexpected, certainly, that hap-
pened from the Altrurian. " It is merely this," he
said. " Having come to live rightly upon earth, as
we believe, or having at least ceased to deny God in

302 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

our statutes and customs, the fear of deatli, as it once
weighed upon us, has been lifted from our souls.
The mystery of it has so far been taken away that we
perceive it as something just and natural. Now that
all unkindness has been banished from among us, we
can conceive of no such cruelty as death once seemed.
If we do not know yet the full meaning of death, we
know that the Creator of it and of us meant mercy
and blessing by it. When one dies, we grieve, but
not as those without hope. We do not say that the
dead have gone to a better place, and then selfishly
bewail them ; for we have the kingdom of heaven up-
on earth, already, and we know that wherever they go
they will be homesick for Altruria, and when we think
of the years that may pass before we meet them again,
! our hearts ache, as they must. But the presence of the
I risen Christ in our daily lives is our assurance that no
one ceases to be, and that we shall sec our dead again.
I cannot explain this to you ; I can only affirm it."

The Altrurian spoke very solemnly, and a reverent
hush fell upon the assembly. It was broken by the
voice of a woman wailing out : " Oh, do you suppose,
if we lived so, we should feel so, too ? That I should
know my little girl was living ? "

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 303

" Why not ? " asked the Altriirian.

To my vast astonishment, the manufacturer, who
sat the farthest from me in the same line with Mrs.
Makely, the professor and the banker, rose and asked
tremulously : " And have — have you had any direct
communication with the other world ? Has any dis-
embodied spirit returned to testify of the life beyond
the grave ? "

The professor nodded significantly across Mrs.
Makely to me, and then frowned and shook his head.
I asked her if she knew what he meant. " Why,
didn't you know that spiritualism was that poor man's
foible ? He lost his son in a railroad accident, and
ever since" —

She stopped and gave her attention to the Altru-
rian, who was replying to the manufacturer's ques-
tion.

" We do not need any such testimony. Our life

here makes us sure of the life there. At any rate, no

externation of the supernatural, no objective miracle,

has been wrought in our behalf. We have had faith

to do what we prayed for, and the prescience of

which I speak has been added unto us."

The manufacturer asked, as the bereaved mother
30

804 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

had asked : " And if I lived so, should I feel so ? "
Again the Altrurian answered : " Why not ? "
The poor woman quavered : " Oh, do believe it !
I just know it must be true ! "

The manufacturer shook his head sorrowfully, and
sat down, and remained there, looking at the ground.
" I am aware," the Altrurian went on, " that what
I have said as to our realizing the kingdom of heaven
on the earth nmst seem boastful and arrogant. That
is what you pray for every day, but you do not believe
it possible for God's will to be done on earth as it is
done in heaven ; that is, you do not if you are like
the competitive and monopolistic peoi)lc we once
were. We once regarded that petition as a formula
vaguely pleasing to the Deity, but we no more
expected His kingdom to come than we expected
Him to give us each day our daily bread ; we knew
that if we wanted something to eat we should have
to hustle for it, and get there first ; I use the slang of
that far-off time, which, I confess, had a vulgar
vigor.

" But now everything is changed, and the change
has taken place cliiefly from one cause, namely, the
disuse of money. At first, it was thought that some

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 305

sort of circulating medium must be used, that life
could not be transacted without it. But life began
to go on perfectly well, when each dwelt in the place
assigned him, which was no better and no worse than
any other ; and when, after he had given his three
hours a day to the obligatory labors, he had a right
to his share of food, light, heat, and raiment ; the
voluntary labors, to which he gave much time or
little, brought him no increase of those necessaries,
but only credit and affection, j We had always heard
it said that the love of money was the root of all evil,
but we had taken this for a saying, merely ; now we
realized it as an active, vital truth. As soon as
money was abolished, the power to purchase was
gone, and even if there had been any means of buying
beyond the daily needs, with overwork, the commu-
nity had no power to sell to the individual. No man
owned anything, but every man had the right to any-
thing that he could use ; when he could not use it,
his right lapsed.

"With the expropriation of the individual, the
whole vast catalogue of crimes against property shrank
to nothing. The thief could only steal from the
community ; but if he stole, what was he to do with

\>

806 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRUKIA.

his booty ? It was still possible for a depredator to
destroy, but few men's hate is so comprehensive as to
include all other men, and when the individual could
no longer hurt some other individual in his property,
V destruction ceased.

" All the many murders done from love of money,
or of what money could buy, were at an end. AVhere
there was no want, men no longer bartered their souls,
or women their bodies, for the means to keep them-
selves alive. The vices vanished with the crimes, and
r' the diseases almost as largely disappeared. People

were no longer sickened by sloth and surfeit, or de-
formed and depleted by overwork and famine. They
were wholesomely housed in healthful places, and
they were clad fitly for their labor and fitly for their
leisure ; the caprices of vanity were not suffered to
attaint the beauty of the national dress.

" With the stress of superfluous social and business
duties, and the perpetual fear of want which all
classes felt, more or less ; with the tumult of the
cities and the solitude of the country, insanity had
increased among us till the whole land was dotted
with asylums, and the mad were numbered by
hundreds of thousands. In every region they were

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 307

an army, an awful army of angiiisli and dispair. Now Hk>\ A.'
they have decreased to a number so small, and are of ■' . '" '
a type so mild, that we can hardly count insanity
among our causes of unhappiness.

" We have totally eliminated chance from our eeo- v'
nomic life. There is still a chance that a man will be *
tall or short, in Altruria, that he will be strong or
weak, well or ill, gay or grave, happy or unhappy in
love, but none that he will be rich or poor, busy or
idle, live splendidly or meanly. These stupid and vul-
gar accidents of human contrivance cannot befall us ;
but I shall not be able to tell you just how or why,
or to detail the process of eliminating chance. I may
say, however, that it began wit^ the nationalizatioax ^^j2'^
of telegraphs, expresses, railroads, mines and all largo •
industries operated by stock companies. This at
once struck a fatal blow at the sj^eculation in values,
real and unreal, and at the stock exchange, or bourse ;
we had our own name for that gambler's paradise, or
gambler's hell, whose baleful influence penetrated
every branch of business.

" There were still business fluctuations, as long as
we had business, but they were on a smaller and
smaller scale, and with the final lapse of business they

808 A TllAVELEK FROM ALTRURIA.

necessarily vanished; all economic chance vanished.
The founders of the common -wealth understood per-
fectly that business was the sterile activity of the
function interposed between the demand and the
supply ; that it was nothing structural ; and they in-
tended its extinction, and expected it from the moment
that money was abolished."

" This is all pretty tiresome," said the professor, to
our immediate party. " I don't see why we oblige
ourselves to listen to that fellow's stuff. As if a civ-
ilized state could exist for a day without money or
business."

He went on to give his opinion of the Altrurian's
pretended description, in a tone so audible that it
attracted the notice of the nearest group of railroad
Iiands, who were listening closely to Homos, and one
of them sang out to the professor : " Can't you wait
and let the first man finish ? " and another yelled :
*' Put him out ! " and then they all laughed with a
humorous perception of the impossibility of literally
executing the suggestion.

By the time all was quiet agam I heard the Altru-
rian saying : *' As to our social life, I cannot describe
it in detail, but I can give you some notion of its

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 309

spirit. We make our pleasures civic and public as
far as possible, and the ideal is inclusive, and not ex-
clusive. There are, of course, festivities which all
cannot share, but our distribution into small commu
nities favors the possibility of all doing so. Our daily
life, however, is so largely social that we seldom meet
by special invitation or engagement. When we do, it
is with the perfect understanding that the assemblage
confers no social distinction, but is for a momentary
convenience. In fact, these occasions are rather
avoided, recalling as they do the vapid and tedious
entertainments of the competitive epoch, the recep-
tions and balls and dinners of a semi-barbaric people
striving for social prominence by shutting a certain
number in and a certain number out, and overdressing,
overfeeding and overdrinking. Anything premedi-
tated in the way of a pleasure we think stupid and
mistaken ; we like to meet suddenly, or on the spur
of the moment, out of doors, if possible, and arrange
a picnic, or a dance, or a play ; and let people come
and go without ceremony. No one is more host than
guest ; all are hosts and guests. People consort much
according to their tastes — literary, musical, artistic,
scientific, or mechanical — but these tastes are made

810

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

approaches, not barriers ; and we find out that we
have many more tastes in common than was formerly
supposed.

"But, after all, o'ur life is serious, and no one
among us is quite happy, in the general esteem, un-
less he has dedicated himself, in some special way, to
the general good. Oujjdealjs not rights, but duties."

" Mazzini ! Vyhispcred the professor.

" The greatest distinction which anyone can enjoy
with us is to have found out some new and signal way
of serving the community ; and then it is not good
form for him to seek recognition. The doing any
fine thing is the purest pleasure it can give ; applause
flatters, but it hurts, too, and our benefactors, as we
call them, have learned to shun it.

"We are still far from thinking our civilization
perfect ; but we arc sure that our civic ideals are per-
fect. What we have already accomplished is to have
given a whole continent perpetual peace ; to have
founded an economy in which there is no possibility
of want ; to have killed out political and social am-
bition ; to have disused money and eliminated chance;
to have realized the brotherhood of the race, and to
have outlived the fear of death."

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 311

The Altrurian suddenly stopped with these words,
and sat down. He had spoken a long time, and with
a fullness which my report gives little notion of ; but,
though most of his cultivated listeners were weary,
and a good many ladies had left their seats and gone
back to the hotel, not one of the natives, or the work-
people of any sort, had stirred ; now they remained a
moment motionless and silent, before they rose from
all parts of the field, and shouted : " Go on ! Don't
stop ! Tell us all about it!"

I saw Reuben Camp climb the shoulders of a big
fellow near where the Altrurian had stood ; he waved
the crowd to silence with outspread arms. " lie isn't
going to say anything more ; he's tired. But if any
man don't think he's got his dollar's worth, let him
walk up to the door and the ticket-agent will refund
him his money."

The crowd laughed, and some one shouted : " Good
for you, Reub ! "

Camp continued : " But our friend here will shake
the hand of any man, woman or child, that wants to
speak to him ; and you needn't wipe it on the grass,
first, either, lie's a man! And I want to say that ^
he's going to spend the next week with us, at my

Tl

/

312 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

mother's house, and we shall be glad to have you
call."

The crowd, the rustic and ruder part of it, cheered
and cheered till the mountain echoes answered ; then
a railroader called for three times three, with a tiger,
and got it. The guests of the hotel broke away and
went toward the house, over the long shadows of the
meadow. The lower classes pressed forward, on
Camp's invitation.

'* Well, did you ever hear a more disgusting rigma
role ? " asked Mrs. Makely, as our little group halted
indecisively about her.

*' With all those imaginary commonwealths to draw
upon, from Plato, through More, Bacon, and Camp^
nella, down to Bellamy and Morris, he has constructed
the shakiest effigy ever made of old clothes stuffed
with straw," said the professor.

The manufacturer was silent. The banker said :
*' I don't know. He grappled pretty boldly with your
insinuations. That frank declaration that Altruria
was all these pretty soap-bubble worlds solidified, was
rather fine."

" It was splendid ! " cried Mrs. Makely. The law-
yer and the minister came towards us from where they

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 313

had been sitting together. She called out to them :
" Why in the world didn't one of you gentlemen get
up and propose a vote of thanks ? "

" The difficulty with me is," continued the banker,
" that he lias rendered Altruria incredible. I have no
doubt that he is an Altrurian, but I doubt very much
if he comes from anywhere in particular, and I find
this quite a blow, for wc had got Altruria nicely lo-
cated on the map, and were beginning to get accounts
of it in the newspapers."

" Yes, that is just exactly the way I feel about it,"
sighed Mrs. Makely. " But still, don't you think
there ought to have been a vote of thanks, Mr.
Bullion ? "

"Why, certainly. The fellow was immensely
amusing, and you must have got a lot of money by
him. It was an oversight not to make him a formal
acknowledgment of some kind. If we offered him
money, he would have to leave it all behind him here
when he went home to Altruria."

" Just as we do when we go to heaven ;" I suggested;
the banker did not answer, and I instantly felt that in
the presence of the minister my remark was out of
taste.

314: A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

" Well, then, don't you think," said Mrs. Makely,
who had a leathery insensibility to everything but the
purpose possessing her, " that we ought at least to go
and say something to him personally ? "

" Yes, I think we ought," said the banker, and we
all walked up to where the Altrurian stood, still
thickly surrounded by the lower classes, who were
shaking hands with him, and getting in a word with
him now and then.

One of the construction gang said, carelessly : " No
all-rail route to Altruria, I suppose ? "

" No," answered Homos, " it's a far sea voyage."

" Well, I shouldn't mind working my passage, if
you think they'd let me stay after I got there."

" Ah, you mustn't go to Altruria! You must let
Altruria come to yo?<," returned Homos, with that
confounded smile of his that always won my heart.

" Yes," shouted Reuben Camp, whose thin face
was red with excitement, *' that's the word ! Have
Altruria right here, and right now ! "

The old farmer, who had several times spoken,

cackled out : " I didn't know, one while, when you

was talk'n' about not havin' no money, but what some

1/ on us had had Altrury here for quite a spell ^ already.

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 315

I don't pass more'n fifty dolla's through my hands,
most years."

A laugh went up, and then, at sight of Mrs. Makely
heading our little party, the people round Homos
civilly made way for us. She rushed upon him, and
seized his hand in both of hers ; she dropped her fan,
parasol, gloves, handkerchief and vinaigrette in the
grass to do so. " Oh, Mr. Homos ! " she fluted, and
the tears came into her eyes, " it was beautiful,
beautiful^ every word of it ! I sat in a perfect trance
from beginning to end, and I felt that it was all as
true as it was beautiful. People all around me were
breathless with interest, and I don't know how 1
can ever thank you enough."

" Yes, indeed," the professor hastened to say,
before the Altrurian could answer, and he beamed
malignantly upon him through his spectacles while he
spoke, " it was like some strange romance."

" I don't know that I should go so far as that,"
said the banker, in his turn, " but it certainly seemed
too good to be true."

" Yes," the Altrurian responded simply, but a little
sadly, " now that I am away from it all, and in
conditions so different, I sometimes had to ask

316 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

myself, as I went on, if my whole life had not
hitherto been a dream, and Altruria were not some
blessed vision of the night."

" Then you know how to account for a feeling
which I must acknowledge, too ? " the lawyer asked
courteously. " But it was most interesting."

" The kingdom of God upon earth," said the
minister, " it ought not to be incredible ; but that,
more than anything else you told us of, gave me
pause."

"You, of all men ?" returned the Altrurian, gently.

" Yes," said the minister, with a certain dejection,
" when I remember what I have seen of men, when I
reflect what human nature is, how can I believe that
the kingdom of God will ever come upon the earth ? "

" But in heaven, where lie reigns, who is it does
His will ? The spirits of men?" pursued the Altru-
rian.

" Yes, but conditioned as men are here " —

" But if they were conditioned as men are there ? "

" Now, I can't let you two good people get into a
theological dispute," Mrs. Makely pushed in. " Here
is Mr. Twelvemough dying to shake hands with Mr.
Homos and compliment his distinguished guest ! "

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA. 317

" Ah, Mr. Homos knows what I must have thought
of his talk without my telling him," I began, skill-
fully. " But I am sorry that I am to lose my
distinguished guest so soon ! "

Reuben Camp broke out : " That was my blunder,
Mr. Twelvemough. Mr. Homos and I had talked it
over, conditionally, and I was not to speak of it till
he had told you ; but it slipped out in the excitement ^\
of the moment."

" Oh, it's all right," I said, and I shook hands
cordially with both of them. " It will be the greatest
possible advantage for Mr. Homos to see certain
phases of American life at close range, and he
couldn't possibly see them under better auspices than
yours, Camp."

" Yes, I'm going to drive him through the hill
country, after haying, and then I'm going to take him
down and show him one of our big factory towns."

I believe this was done, but finally the Altrurian
went on to New York, where he was to pass the win-
ter. We parted friends ; I even offered him some in-
troductions ; but his acquaintance had become more
and more difficult, and I was not sorry to part with
him. That taste of his for low company was incur-

A

318 A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA.

able, and I was glad that I was not to be responsible any
longer for whatever strange thing he might do next.
I think he remained very popular with the classes he
most affected ; a throng of natives, construction hands
and table-girls saw him off on his train ; and ho left
large numbers of such admirers in our house and
neighborhood, devout in the faith that there was such
a commonwealth as Altruria, and that he was really
an Altrurian. As for the more cultivated people who
had met him, they continued of two minds upon both
points.

THE END.