Martin Eden........................................................................................................................................................1

The one opened the door with a latchkey and went in, followed by a young fellow who awkwardly removed

his cap. He wore rough clothes that smacked of the sea, and he was manifestly out of place in the spacious

hall in which he found himself. He did not know what to do with his cap, and was stuffing it into his coat

pocket when the other took it from him. The act was done quietly and naturally, and the awkward young

fellow appreciated it. "He understands," was his thought. "He'll see me through all right."

He walked at the other's heels with a swing to his shoulders, and his legs spread unwittingly, as if the level

floors were tilting up and sinking down to the heave and lunge of the sea. The wide rooms seemed too narrow

for his rolling gait, and to himself he was in terror lest his broad shoulders should collide with the doorways

or sweep the bricabrac from the low mantel. He recoiled from side to side between the various objects and

multiplied the hazards that in reality lodged only in his mind. Between a grand piano and a centretable piled

high with books was space for a half a dozen to walk abreast, yet he essayed it with trepidation. His heavy

arms hung loosely at his sides. He did not know what to do with those arms and hands, and when, to his

excited vision, one arm seemed liable to brush against the books on the table, he lurched away like a

frightened horse, barely missing the piano stool. He watched the easy walk of the other in front of him, and

for the first time realized that his walk was different from that of other men. He experienced a momentary

pang of shame that he should walk so uncouthly. The sweat burst through the skin of his forehead in tiny

"Hold on, Arthur, my boy," he said, attempting to mask his anxiety with facetious utterance. "This is too

much all at once for yours truly. Give me a chance to get my nerve. You know I didn't want to come, an' I

"That's all right," was the reassuring answer. "You mustn't be frightened at us. We're just homely people

He stepped back to the table, tore open the envelope, and began to read, giving the stranger an opportunity to

recover himself. And the stranger understood and appreciated. His was the gift of sympathy, understanding;

and beneath his alarmed exterior that sympathetic process went on. He mopped his forehead dry and glanced

about him with a controlled face, though in the eyes there was an expression such as wild animals betray

when they fear the trap. He was surrounded by the unknown, apprehensive of what might happen, ignorant of

what he should do, aware that he walked and bore himself awkwardly, fearful that every attribute and power

of him was similarly afflicted. He was keenly sensitive, hopelessly selfconscious, and the amused glance

that the other stole privily at him over the top of the letter burned into him like a dagger thrust. He saw the

glance, but he gave no sign, for among the things he had learned was discipline. Also, that daggerthrust

went to his pride. He cursed himself for having come, and at the same time resolved that, happen what would,

having come, he would carry it through. The lines of his face hardened, and into his eyes came a fighting

light. He looked about more unconcernedly, sharply observant, every detail of the pretty interior registering

itself on his brain. His eyes were wide apart; nothing in their field of vision escaped; and as they drank in the

beauty before them the fighting light died out and a warm glow took its place. He was responsive to beauty,

An oil painting caught and held him. A heavy surf thundered and burst over an outjutting rock; lowering

stormclouds covered the sky; and, outside the line of surf, a pilotschooner, closehauled, heeled over till

every detail of her deck was visible, was surging along against a stormy sunset sky. There was beauty, and it

drew him irresistibly. He forgot his awkward walk and came closer to the painting, very close. The beauty

faded out of the canvas. His face expressed his bepuzzlement. He stared at what seemed a careless daub of

paint, then stepped away. Immediately all the beauty flashed back into the canvas. "A trick picture," was his

thought, as he dismissed it, though in the midst of the multitudinous impressions he was receiving he found

time to feel a prod of indignation that so much beauty should be sacrificed to make a trick. He did not know

painting. He had been brought up on chromos and lithographs that were always definite and sharp, near or

far. He had seen oil paintings, it was true, in the show windows of shops, but the glass of the windows had

He glanced around at his friend reading the letter and saw the books on the table. Into his eyes leaped a

wistfulness and a yearning as promptly as the yearning leaps into the eyes of a starving man at sight of food.

An impulsive stride, with one lurch to right and left of the shoulders, brought him to the table, where he

began affectionately handling the books. He glanced at the titles and the authors' names, read fragments of

text, caressing the volumes with his eyes and hands, and, once, recognized a book he had read. For the rest,

they were strange books and strange authors. He chanced upon a volume of Swinburne and began reading

steadily, forgetful of where he was, his face glowing. Twice he closed the book on his forefinger to look at

the name of the author. Swinburne! he would remember that name. That fellow had eyes, and he had certainly

seen color and flashing light. But who was Swinburne? Was he dead a hundred years or so, like most of the

poets? Or was he alive still, and writing? He turned to the titlepage . . . yes, he had written other books;

well, he would go to the free library the first thing in the morning and try to get hold of some of Swinburne's

stuff. He went back to the text and lost himself. He did not notice that a young woman had entered the room.

The book was closed on his forefinger, and before he turned he was thrilling to the first new impression,

which was not of the girl, but of her brother's words. Under that muscled body of his he was a mass of

quivering sensibilities. At the slightest impact of the outside world upon his consciousness, his thoughts,

sympathies, and emotions leapt and played like lambent flame. He was extraordinarily receptive and

responsive, while his imagination, pitched high, was ever at work establishing relations of likeness and

difference. "Mr. Eden," was what he had thrilled to he who had been called "Eden," or "Martin Eden," or

just "Martin," all his life. And "MISTER!" It was certainly going some, was his internal comment. His mind

seemed to turn, on the instant, into a vast camera obscura, and he saw arrayed around his consciousness

endless pictures from his life, of stokeholes and forecastles, camps and beaches, jails and boozingkens,

feverhospitals and slum streets, wherein the thread of association was the fashion in which he had been

And then he turned and saw the girl. The phantasmagoria of his brain vanished at sight of her. She was a pale,

ethereal creature, with wide, spiritual blue eyes and a wealth of golden hair. He did not know how she was

dressed, except that the dress was as wonderful as she. He likened her to a pale gold flower upon a slender

stem. No, she was a spirit, a divinity, a goddess; such sublimated beauty was not of the earth. Or perhaps the

books were right, and there were many such as she in the upper walks of life. She might well be sung by that

chap, Swinburne. Perhaps he had had somebody like her in mind when he painted that girl, Iseult, in the book

there on the table. All this plethora of sight, and feeling, and thought occurred on the instant. There was no

pause of the realities wherein he moved. He saw her hand coming out to his, and she looked him straight in

the eyes as she shook hands, frankly, like a man. The women he had known did not shake hands that way. For

that matter, most of them did not shake hands at all. A flood of associations, visions of various ways he had

made the acquaintance of women, rushed into his mind and threatened to swamp it. But he shook them aside

and looked at her. Never had he seen such a woman. The women he had known! Immediately, beside her, on

either hand, ranged the women he had known. For an eternal second he stood in the midst of a portrait

gallery, wherein she occupied the central place, while about her were limned many women, all to be weighed

and measured by a fleeting glance, herself the unit of weight and measure. He saw the weak and sickly faces

of the girls of the factories, and the simpering, boisterous girls from the south of Market. There were women

of the cattle camps, and swarthy cigarettesmoking women of Old Mexico. These, in turn, were crowded out

by Japanese women, dolllike, stepping mincingly on wooden clogs; by Eurasians, delicate featured, stamped

with degeneracy; by fullbodied SouthSeaIsland women, flowercrowned and brownskinned. All these

were blotted out by a grotesque and terrible nightmare brood frowsy, shuffling creatures from the

pavements of Whitechapel, ginbloated hags of the stews, and all the vast hell's following of harpies,

vilemouthed and filthy, that under the guise of monstrous female form prey upon sailors, the scrapings of

"Won't you sit down, Mr. Eden?" the girl was saying. "I have been looking forward to meeting you ever since

He waved his hand deprecatingly and muttered that it was nothing at all, what he had done, and that any

fellow would have done it. She noticed that the hand he waved was covered with fresh abrasions, in the

process of healing, and a glance at the other loosehanging hand showed it to be in the same condition. Also,

with quick, critical eye, she noted a scar on his cheek, another that peeped out from under the hair of the

forehead, and a third that ran down and disappeared under the starched collar. She repressed a smile at sight

of the red line that marked the chafe of the collar against the bronzed neck. He was evidently unused to stiff

collars. Likewise her feminine eye took in the clothes he wore, the cheap and unaesthetic cut, the wrinkling of

the coat across the shoulders, and the series of wrinkles in the sleeves that advertised bulging biceps muscles.

While he waved his hand and muttered that he had done nothing at all, he was obeying her behest by trying to

get into a chair. He found time to admire the ease with which she sat down, then lurched toward a chair

facing her, overwhelmed with consciousness of the awkward figure he was cutting. This was a new

experience for him. All his life, up to then, he had been unaware of being either graceful or awkward. Such

thoughts of self had never entered his mind. He sat down gingerly on the edge of the chair, greatly worried by

his hands. They were in the way wherever he put them. Arthur was leaving the room, and Martin Eden

followed his exit with longing eyes. He felt lost, alone there in the room with that pale spirit of a woman.

There was no barkeeper upon whom to call for drinks, no small boy to send around the corner for a can of

beer and by means of that social fluid start the amenities of friendship flowing.

"You have such a scar on your neck, Mr. Eden," the girl was saying. "How did it happen? I am sure it must

"A Mexican with a knife, miss," he answered, moistening his parched lips and clearing hip throat. "It was just

Baldly as he had stated it, in his eyes was a rich vision of that hot, starry night at Salina Cruz, the white strip

of beach, the lights of the sugar steamers in the harbor, the voices of the drunken sailors in the distance, the

jostling stevedores, the flaming passion in the Mexican's face, the glint of the beasteyes in the starlight, the

sting of the steel in his neck, and the rush of blood, the crowd and the cries, the two bodies, his and the

Mexican's, locked together, rolling over and over and tearing up the sand, and from away off somewhere the

mellow tinkling of a guitar. Such was the picture, and he thrilled to the memory of it, wondering if the man

could paint it who had painted the pilot schooner on the wall. The white beach, the stars, and the lights of

the sugar steamers would look great, he thought, and midway on the sand the dark group of figures that

surrounded the fighters. The knife occupied a place in the picture, he decided, and would show well, with a

sort of gleam, in the light of the stars. But of all this no hint had crept into his speech. "He tried to bite off my

"Oh," the girl said, in a faint, far voice, and he noticed the shock in her sensitive face.

He felt a shock himself, and a blush of embarrassment shone faintly on his sunburned cheeks, though to him

it burned as hotly as when his cheeks had been exposed to the open furnacedoor in the fire room. Such

sordid things as stabbing affrays were evidently not fit subjects for conversation with a lady. People in the

books, in her walk of life, did not talk about such things perhaps they did not know about them, either.

There was a brief pause in the conversation they were trying to get started. Then she asked tentatively about

the scar on his cheek. Even as she asked, he realized that she was making an effort to talk his talk, and he

"It was just an accident," he said, putting his hand to his cheek. "One night, in a calm, with a heavy sea

running, the mainboomlift carried away, an' next the tackle. The lift was wire, an' it was threshin' around

like a snake. The whole watch was tryin' to grab it, an' I rushed in an' got swatted."

"Oh," she said, this time with an accent of comprehension, though secretly his speech had been so much

"This man Swineburne," he began, attempting to put his plan into execution and pronouncing the I long.

"Yes, that's the chap," he stammered, his cheeks hot again. "How long since he died?"

"Why, I haven't heard that he was dead." She looked at him curiously. "Where did you make his

"I never clapped eyes on him," was the reply. "But I read some of his poetry out of that book there on the

And thereat she began to talk quickly and easily upon the subject he had suggested. He felt better, and settled

back slightly from the edge of the chair, holding tightly to its arms with his hands, as if it might get away

from him and buck him to the floor. He had succeeded in making her talk her talk, and while she rattled on,

he strove to follow her, marvelling at all the knowledge that was stowed away in that pretty head of hers, and

drinking in the pale beauty of her face. Follow her he did, though bothered by unfamiliar words that fell

glibly from her lips and by critical phrases and thoughtprocesses that were foreign to his mind, but that

nevertheless stimulated his mind and set it tingling. Here was intellectual life, he thought, and here was

beauty, warm and wonderful as he had never dreamed it could be. He forgot himself and stared at her with

hungry eyes. Here was something to live for, to win to, to fight for ay, and die for. The books were true.

There were such women in the world. She was one of them. She lent wings to his imagination, and great,

luminous canvases spread themselves before him whereon loomed vague, gigantic figures of love and

romance, and of heroic deeds for woman's sake for a pale woman, a flower of gold. And through the

swaying, palpitant vision, as through a fairy mirage, he stared at the real woman, sitting there and talking of

literature and art. He listened as well, but he stared, unconscious of the fixity of his gaze or of the fact that all

that was essentially masculine in his nature was shining in his eyes. But she, who knew little of the world of

men, being a woman, was keenly aware of his burning eyes. She had never had men look at her in such

fashion, and it embarrassed her. She stumbled and halted in her utterance. The thread of argument slipped

from her. He frightened her, and at the same time it was strangely pleasant to be so looked upon. Her training

warned her of peril and of wrong, subtle, mysterious, luring; while her instincts rang clarionvoiced through

her being, impelling her to hurdle caste and place and gain to this traveller from another world, to this

uncouth young fellow with lacerated hands and a line of raw red caused by the unaccustomed linen at his

throat, who, all too evidently, was soiled and tainted by ungracious existence. She was clean, and her

cleanness revolted; but she was woman, and she was just beginning to learn the paradox of woman.

"As I was saying what was I saying?" She broke off abruptly and laughed merrily at her predicament.

"You was saying that this man Swinburne failed bein' a great poet because an' that was as far as you got,

miss," he prompted, while to himself he seemed suddenly hungry, and delicious little thrills crawled up and

down his spine at the sound of her laughter. Like silver, he thought to himself, like tinkling silver bells; and

on the instant, and for an instant, he was transported to a far land, where under pink cherry blossoms, he

smoked a cigarette and listened to the bells of the peaked pagoda calling strawsandalled devotees to

"Yes, thank you," she said. "Swinburne fails, when all is said, because he is, well, indelicate. There are many

of his poems that should never be read. Every line of the really great poets is filled with beautiful truth, and

calls to all that is high and noble in the human. Not a line of the great poets can be spared without

"I thought it was great," he said hesitatingly, "the little I read. I had no idea he was such a a scoundrel. I

"There are many lines that could be spared from the book you were reading," she said, her voice primly firm

"I must 'a' missed 'em," he announced. "What I read was the real goods. It was all lighted up an' shining, an' it

shun right into me an' lighted me up inside, like the sun or a searchlight. That's the way it landed on me, but I

He broke off lamely. He was confused, painfully conscious of his inarticulateness. He had felt the bigness

and glow of life in what he had read, but his speech was inadequate. He could not express what he felt, and to

himself he likened himself to a sailor, in a strange ship, on a dark night, groping about in the unfamiliar

running rigging. Well, he decided, it was up to him to get acquainted in this new world. He had never seen

anything that he couldn't get the hang of when he wanted to and it was about time for him to want to learn to

talk the things that were inside of him so that she could understand. SHE was bulking large on his horizon.

"Yes, I've read 'm," he broke in impulsively, spurred on to exhibit and make the most of his little store of

book knowledge, desirous of showing her that he was not wholly a stupid clod. "'The Psalm of Life,'

She nodded her head and smiled, and he felt, somehow, that her smile was tolerant, pitifully tolerant. He was

a fool to attempt to make a pretence that way. That Longfellow chap most likely had written countless books

"Excuse me, miss, for buttin' in that way. I guess the real facts is that I don't know nothin' much about such

It sounded like a threat. His voice was determined, his eyes were flashing, the lines of his face had grown

harsh. And to her it seemed that the angle of his jaw had changed; its pitch had become unpleasantly

aggressive. At the same time a wave of intense virility seemed to surge out from him and impinge upon her.

"I think you could make it in in your class," she finished with a laugh. "You are very strong."

Her gaze rested for a moment on the muscular neck, heavy corded, almost bulllike, bronzed by the sun,

spilling over with rugged health and strength. And though he sat there, blushing and humble, again she felt

drawn to him. She was surprised by a wanton thought that rushed into her mind. It seemed to her that if she

could lay her two hands upon that neck that all its strength and vigor would flow out to her. She was shocked

by this thought. It seemed to reveal to her an undreamed depravity in her nature. Besides, strength to her was

a gross and brutish thing. Her ideal of masculine beauty had always been slender gracefulness. Yet the

thought still persisted. It bewildered her that she should desire to place her hands on that sunburned neck. In

truth, she was far from robust, and the need of her body and mind was for strength. But she did not know it.

She knew only that no man had ever affected her before as this one had, who shocked her from moment to

"Yes, I ain't no invalid," he said. "When it comes down to hard pan, I can digest scrapiron. But just now

I've got dyspepsia. Most of what you was sayin' I can't digest. Never trained that way, you see. I like books

and poetry, and what time I've had I've read 'em, but I've never thought about 'em the way you have. That's

why I can't talk about 'em. I'm like a navigator adrift on a strange sea without chart or compass. Now I want

to get my bearin's. Mebbe you can put me right. How did you learn all this you've ben talkin'?"

"You've gone to the university?" he demanded in frank amazement. He felt that she had become remoter from

He did not know what "English" meant, but he made a mental note of that item of ignorance and passed on.

She beamed encouragement upon his desire for knowledge, and said: "That depends upon how much

studying you have already done. You have never attended high school? Of course not. But did you finish

"I had two years to run, when I left," he answered. "But I was always honorably promoted at school."

The next moment, angry with himself for the boast, he had gripped the arms of the chair so savagely that

every fingerend was stinging. At the same moment he became aware that a woman was entering the room.

He saw the girl leave her chair and trip swiftly across the floor to the newcomer. They kissed each other, and,

with arms around each other's waists, they advanced toward him. That must be her mother, he thought. She

was a tall, blond woman, slender, and stately, and beautiful. Her gown was what he might expect in such a

house. His eyes delighted in the graceful lines of it. She and her dress together reminded him of women on

the stage. Then he remembered seeing similar grand ladies and gowns entering the London theatres while he

stood and watched and the policemen shoved him back into the drizzle beyond the awning. Next his mind

leaped to the Grand Hotel at Yokohama, where, too, from the sidewalk, he had seen grand ladies. Then the

city and the harbor of Yokohama, in a thousand pictures, began flashing before his eyes. But he swiftly

dismissed the kaleidoscope of memory, oppressed by the urgent need of the present. He knew that he must

stand up to be introduced, and he struggled painfully to his feet, where he stood with trousers bagging at the

knees, his arms loose hanging and ludicrous, his face set hard for the impending ordeal.

The process of getting into the dining room was a nightmare to him. Between halts and stumbles, jerks and

lurches, locomotion had at times seemed impossible. But at last he had made it, and was seated alongside of

Her. The array of knives and forks frightened him. They bristled with unknown perils, and he gazed at them,

fascinated, till their dazzle became a background across which moved a succession of forecastle pictures,

wherein he and his mates sat eating salt beef with sheathknives and fingers, or scooping thick peasoup out

of pannikins by means of battered iron spoons. The stench of bad beef was in his nostrils, while in his ears, to

the accompaniment of creaking timbers and groaning bulkheads, echoed the loud mouthnoises of the eaters.

He watched them eating, and decided that they ate like pigs. Well, he would be careful here. He would make

He glanced around the table. Opposite him was Arthur, and Arthur's brother, Norman. They were her

brothers, he reminded himself, and his heart warmed toward them. How they loved each other, the members

of this family! There flashed into his mind the picture of her mother, of the kiss of greeting, and of the pair of

them walking toward him with arms entwined. Not in his world were such displays of affection between

parents and children made. It was a revelation of the heights of existence that were attained in the world

above. It was the finest thing yet that he had seen in this small glimpse of that world. He was moved deeply

by appreciation of it, and his heart was melting with sympathetic tenderness. He had starved for love all his

life. His nature craved love. It was an organic demand of his being. Yet he had gone without, and hardened

himself in the process. He had not known that he needed love. Nor did he know it now. He merely saw it in

He was glad that Mr. Morse was not there. It was difficult enough getting acquainted with her, and her

mother, and her brother, Norman. Arthur he already knew somewhat. The father would have been too much

for him, he felt sure. It seemed to him that he had never worked so hard in his life. The severest toil was

child's play compared with this. Tiny nodules of moisture stood out on his forehead, and his shirt was wet

with sweat from the exertion of doing so many unaccustomed things at once. He had to eat as he had never

eaten before, to handle strange tools, to glance surreptitiously about and learn how to accomplish each new

thing, to receive the flood of impressions that was pouring in upon him and being mentally annotated and

classified; to be conscious of a yearning for her that perturbed him in the form of a dull, aching restlessness;

to feel the prod of desire to win to the walk in life whereon she trod, and to have his mind ever and again

straying off in speculation and vague plans of how to reach to her. Also, when his secret glance went across

to Norman opposite him, or to any one else, to ascertain just what knife or fork was to be used in any

particular occasion, that person's features were seized upon by his mind, which automatically strove to

appraise them and to divine what they were all in relation to her. Then he had to talk, to hear what was said

to him and what was said back and forth, and to answer, when it was necessary, with a tongue prone to

looseness of speech that required a constant curb. And to add confusion to confusion, there was the servant,

an unceasing menace, that appeared noiselessly at his shoulder, a dire Sphinx that propounded puzzles and

conundrums demanding instantaneous solution. He was oppressed throughout the meal by the thought of

fingerbowls. Irrelevantly, insistently, scores of times, he wondered when they would come on and what they

looked like. He had heard of such things, and now, sooner or later, somewhere in the next few minutes, he

would see them, sit at table with exalted beings who used them ay, and he would use them himself. And

most important of all, far down and yet always at the surface of his thought, was the problem of how he

should comport himself toward these persons. What should his attitude be? He wrestled continually and

anxiously with the problem. There were cowardly suggestions that he should make believe, assume a part;

and there were still more cowardly suggestions that warned him he would fail in such course, that his nature

It was during the first part of the dinner, struggling to decide upon his attitude, that he was very quiet. He did

not know that his quietness was giving the lie to Arthur's words of the day before, when that brother of hers

had announced that he was going to bring a wild man home to dinner and for them not to be alarmed, because

they would find him an interesting wild man. Martin Eden could not have found it in him, just then, to

believe that her brother could be guilty of such treachery especially when he had been the means of getting

this particular brother out of an unpleasant row. So he sat at table, perturbed by his own unfitness and at the

same time charmed by all that went on about him. For the first time he realized that eating was something

more than a utilitarian function. He was unaware of what he ate. It was merely food. He was feasting his love

of beauty at this table where eating was an aesthetic function. It was an intellectual function, too. His mind

was stirred. He heard words spoken that were meaningless to him, and other words that he had seen only in

books and that no man or woman he had known was of large enough mental caliber to pronounce. When he

heard such words dropping carelessly from the lips of the members of this marvellous family, her family, he

thrilled with delight. The romance, and beauty, and high vigor of the books were coming true. He was in that

rare and blissful state wherein a man sees his dreams stalk out from the crannies of fantasy and become fact.

Never had he been at such an altitude of living, and he kept himself in the background, listening, observing,

and pleasuring, replying in reticent monosyllables, saying, "Yes, miss," and "No, miss," to her, and "Yes,

ma'am," and "No, ma'am," to her mother. He curbed the impulse, arising out of his seatraining, to say "Yes,

sir," and "No, sir," to her brothers. He felt that it would be inappropriate and a confession of inferiority on his

part which would never do if he was to win to her. Also, it was a dictate of his pride. "By God!" he cried to

himself, once; "I'm just as good as them, and if they do know lots that I don't, I could learn 'm a few myself,

all the same!" And the next moment, when she or her mother addressed him as "Mr. Eden," his aggressive

pride was forgotten, and he was glowing and warm with delight. He was a civilized man, that was what he

was, shoulder to shoulder, at dinner, with people he had read about in books. He was in the books himself,

But while he belied Arthur's description, and appeared a gentle lamb rather than a wild man, he was racking

his brains for a course of action. He was no gentle lamb, and the part of second fiddle would never do for the

highpitched dominance of his nature. He talked only when he had to, and then his speech was like his walk

to the table, filled with jerks and halts as he groped in his polyglot vocabulary for words, debating over words

he knew were fit but which he feared he could not pronounce, rejecting other words he knew would not be

understood or would be raw and harsh. But all the time he was oppressed by the consciousness that this

carefulness of diction was making a booby of him, preventing him from expressing what he had in him. Also,

his love of freedom chafed against the restriction in much the same way his neck chafed against the starched

fetter of a collar. Besides, he was confident that he could not keep it up. He was by nature powerful of

thought and sensibility, and the creative spirit was restive and urgent. He was swiftly mastered by the concept

or sensation in him that struggled in birththroes to receive expression and form, and then he forgot himself

Once, he declined something from the servant who interrupted and pestered at his shoulder, and he said,

On the instant those at the table were keyed up and expectant, the servant was smugly pleased, and he was

"It's the Kanaka for 'finish,'" he explained, "and it just come out naturally. It's spelt pau."

He caught her curious and speculative eyes fixed on his hands, and, being in explanatory mood, he said:

"I just come down the Coast on one of the Pacific mail steamers. She was behind time, an' around the Puget

Sound ports we worked like niggers, storing cargomixed freight, if you know what that means. That's how

"Oh, it wasn't that," she hastened to explain, in turn. "Your hands seemed too small for your body."

"Yes," he said depreciatingly. "They ain't big enough to stand the strain. I can hit like a mule with my arms

and shoulders. They are too strong, an' when I smash a man on the jaw the hands get smashed, too."

He was not happy at what he had said. He was filled with disgust at himself. He had loosed the guard upon

"It was brave of you to help Arthur the way you did and you a stranger," she said tactfully, aware of his

He, in turn, realized what she had done, and in the consequent warm surge of gratefulness that overwhelmed

"It wasn't nothin' at all," he said. "Any guy 'ud do it for another. That bunch of hoodlums was lookin' for

trouble, an' Arthur wasn't botherin' 'em none. They butted in on 'm, an' then I butted in on them an' poked a

few. That's where some of the skin off my hands went, along with some of the teeth of the gang. I wouldn't 'a'

He paused, openmouthed, on the verge of the pit of his own depravity and utter worthlessness to breathe the

same air she did. And while Arthur took up the tale, for the twentieth time, of his adventure with the drunken

hoodlums on the ferryboat and of how Martin Eden had rushed in and rescued him, that individual, with

frowning brows, meditated upon the fool he had made of himself, and wrestled more determinedly with the

problem of how he should conduct himself toward these people. He certainly had not succeeded so far. He

wasn't of their tribe, and he couldn't talk their lingo, was the way he put it to himself. He couldn't fake being

their kind. The masquerade would fail, and besides, masquerade was foreign to his nature. There was no

room in him for sham or artifice. Whatever happened, he must be real. He couldn't talk their talk just yet,

though in time he would. Upon that he was resolved. But in the meantime, talk he must, and it must be his

own talk, toned down, of course, so as to be comprehensible to them and so as not to shook them too much.

And furthermore, he wouldn't claim, not even by tacit acceptance, to be familiar with anything that was

unfamiliar. In pursuance of this decision, when the two brothers, talking university shop, had used "trig"

"And what is math?" was the next question, which, somehow, brought the laugh on Norman.

Martin Eden nodded. He had caught a glimpse of the apparently illimitable vistas of knowledge. What he saw

took on tangibility. His abnormal power of vision made abstractions take on concrete form. In the alchemy of

his brain, trigonometry and mathematics and the whole field of knowledge which they betokened were

transmuted into so much landscape. The vistas he saw were vistas of green foliage and forest glades, all softly

luminous or shot through with flashing lights. In the distance, detail was veiled and blurred by a purple haze,

but behind this purple haze, he knew, was the glamour of the unknown, the lure of romance. It was like wine

to him. Here was adventure, something to do with head and hand, a world to conquer and straightway from

the back of his consciousness rushed the thought, CONQUERING, TO WIN TO HER, THAT LILYPALE

The glimmering vision was rent asunder and dissipated by Arthur, who, all evening, had been trying to draw

his wild man out. Martin Eden remembered his decision. For the first time he became himself, consciously

and deliberately at first, but soon lost in the joy of creating in making life as he knew it appear before his

listeners' eyes. He had been a member of the crew of the smuggling schooner Halcyon when she was

captured by a revenue cutter. He saw with wide eyes, and he could tell what he saw. He brought the pulsing

sea before them, and the men and the ships upon the sea. He communicated his power of vision, till they saw

with his eyes what he had seen. He selected from the vast mass of detail with an artist's touch, drawing

pictures of life that glowed and burned with light and color, injecting movement so that his listeners surged

along with him on the flood of rough eloquence, enthusiasm, and power. At times he shocked them with the

vividness of the narrative and his terms of speech, but beauty always followed fast upon the heels of violence,

and tragedy was relieved by humor, by interpretations of the strange twists and quirks of sailors' minds.

And while he talked, the girl looked at him with startled eyes. His fire warmed her. She wondered if she had

been cold all her days. She wanted to lean toward this burning, blazing man that was like a volcano spouting

forth strength, robustness, and health. She felt that she must lean toward him, and resisted by an effort. Then,

too, there was the counter impulse to shrink away from him. She was repelled by those lacerated hands,

grimed by toil so that the very dirt of life was ingrained in the flesh itself, by that red chafe of the collar and

those bulging muscles. His roughness frightened her; each roughness of speech was an insult to her ear, each

rough phase of his life an insult to her soul. And ever and again would come the draw of him, till she thought

he must be evil to have such power over her. All that was most firmly established in her mind was rocking.

His romance and adventure were battering at the conventions. Before his facile perils and ready laugh, life

was no longer an affair of serious effort and restraint, but a toy, to be played with and turned topsyturvy,

carelessly to be lived and pleasured in, and carelessly to be flung aside. "Therefore, play!" was the cry that

rang through her. "Lean toward him, if so you will, and place your two hands upon his neck!" She wanted to

cry out at the recklessness of the thought, and in vain she appraised her own cleanness and culture and

balanced all that she was against what he was not. She glanced about her and saw the others gazing at him

with rapt attention; and she would have despaired had not she seen horror in her mother's eyes fascinated

horror, it was true, but none the less horror. This man from outer darkness was evil. Her mother saw it, and

her mother was right. She would trust her mother's judgment in this as she had always trusted it in all things.

Later, at the piano, she played for him, and at him, aggressively, with the vague intent of emphasizing the

impassableness of the gulf that separated them. Her music was a club that she swung brutally upon his head;

and though it stunned him and crushed him down, it incited him. He gazed upon her in awe. In his mind, as in

her own, the gulf widened; but faster than it widened, towered his ambition to win across it. But he was too

complicated a plexus of sensibilities to sit staring at a gulf a whole evening, especially when there was music.

He was remarkably susceptible to music. It was like strong drink, firing him to audacities of feeling, a drug

that laid hold of his imagination and went cloudsoaring through the sky. It banished sordid fact, flooded his

mind with beauty, loosed romance and to its heels added wings. He did not understand the music she played.

It was different from the dance hall pianobanging and blatant brass bands he had heard. But he had caught

hints of such music from the books, and he accepted her playing largely on faith, patiently waiting, at first,

for the lifting measures of pronounced and simple rhythm, puzzled because those measures were not long

continued. Just as he caught the swing of them and started, his imagination attuned in flight, always they

vanished away in a chaotic scramble of sounds that was meaningless to him, and that dropped his

Once, it entered his mind that there was a deliberate rebuff in all this. He caught her spirit of antagonism and

strove to divine the message that her hands pronounced upon the keys. Then he dismissed the thought as

unworthy and impossible, and yielded himself more freely to the music. The old delightful condition began to

be induced. His feet were no longer clay, and his flesh became spirit; before his eyes and behind his eyes

shone a great glory; and then the scene before him vanished and he was away, rocking over the world that

was to him a very dear world. The known and the unknown were commingled in the dreampageant that

thronged his vision. He entered strange ports of sunwashed lands, and trod marketplaces among barbaric

peoples that no man had ever seen. The scent of the spice islands was in his nostrils as he had known it on

warm, breathless nights at sea, or he beat up against the southeast trades through long tropic days, sinking

palmtufted coral islets in the turquoise sea behind and lifting palmtufted coral islets in the turquoise sea

ahead. Swift as thought the pictures came and went. One instant he was astride a broncho and flying through

the fairycolored Painted Desert country; the next instant he was gazing down through shimmering heat into

the whited sepulchre of Death Valley, or pulling an oar on a freezing ocean where great ice islands towered

and glistened in the sun. He lay on a coral beach where the cocoanuts grew down to the mellow sounding

surf. The hulk of an ancient wreck burned with blue fires, in the light of which danced the HULA dancers to

the barbaric lovecalls of the singers, who chanted to tinkling UKULELES and rumbling tomtoms. It was a

sensuous, tropic night. In the background a volcano crater was silhouetted against the stars. Overhead drifted

He was a harp; all life that he had known and that was his consciousness was the strings; and the flood of

music was a wind that poured against those strings and set them vibrating with memories and dreams. He did

not merely feel. Sensation invested itself in form and color and radiance, and what his imagination dared, it

objectified in some sublimated and magic way. Past, present, and future mingled; and he went on oscillating

across the broad, warm world, through high adventure and noble deeds to Her ay, and with her, winning

her, his arm about her, and carrying her on in flight through the empery of his mind.

And she, glancing at him across her shoulder, saw something of all this in his face. It was a transfigured face,

with great shining eyes that gazed beyond the veil of sound and saw behind it the leap and pulse of life and

the gigantic phantoms of the spirit. She was startled. The raw, stumbling lout was gone. The illfitting

clothes, battered hands, and sunburned face remained; but these seemed the prisonbars through which she

saw a great soul looking forth, inarticulate and dumb because of those feeble lips that would not give it

speech. Only for a flashing moment did she see this, then she saw the lout returned, and she laughed at the

whim of her fancy. But the impression of that fleeting glimpse lingered, and when the time came for him to

beat a stumbling retreat and go, she lent him the volume of Swinburne, and another of Browning she was

studying Browning in one of her English courses. He seemed such a boy, as he stood blushing and

stammering his thanks, that a wave of pity, maternal in its prompting, welled up in her. She did not remember

the lout, nor the imprisoned soul, nor the man who had stared at her in all masculineness and delighted and

frightened her. She saw before her only a boy, who was shaking her hand with a hand so calloused that it felt

"The greatest time of my life. You see, I ain't used to things. . . " He looked about him helplessly. "To people

"I hope you'll call again," she said, as he was saying good night to her brothers.

"Twenty almost twentyone. I asked him this afternoon. I didn't think he was that young."

And I am three years older, was the thought in her mind as she kissed her brothers goodnight.

As Martin Eden went down the steps, his hand dropped into his coat pocket. It came out with a brown rice

paper and a pinch of Mexican tobacco, which were deftly rolled together into a cigarette. He drew the first

whiff of smoke deep into his lungs and expelled it in a long and lingering exhalation. "By God!" he said

aloud, in a voice of awe and wonder. "By God!" he repeated. And yet again he murmured, "By God!" Then

his hand went to his collar, which he ripped out of the shirt and stuffed into his pocket. A cold drizzle was

falling, but he bared his head to it and unbuttoned his vest, swinging along in splendid unconcern. He was

only dimly aware that it was raining. He was in an ecstasy, dreaming dreams and reconstructing the scenes

He had met the woman at last the woman that he had thought little about, not being given to thinking about

women, but whom he had expected, in a remote way, he would sometime meet. He had sat next to her at

table. He had felt her hand in his, he had looked into her eyes and caught a vision of a beautiful spirit; but

no more beautiful than the eyes through which it shone, nor than the flesh that gave it expression and form.

He did not think of her flesh as flesh, which was new to him; for of the women he had known that was the

only way he thought. Her flesh was somehow different. He did not conceive of her body as a body, subject to

the ills and frailties of bodies. Her body was more than the garb of her spirit. It was an emanation of her

spirit, a pure and gracious crystallization of her divine essence. This feeling of the divine startled him. It

shocked him from his dreams to sober thought. No word, no clew, no hint, of the divine had ever reached him

before. He had never believed in the divine. He had always been irreligious, scoffing goodnaturedly at the

skypilots and their immortality of the soul. There was no life beyond, he had contended; it was here and

now, then darkness everlasting. But what he had seen in her eyes was soul immortal soul that could never

die. No man he had known, nor any woman, had given him the message of immortality. But she had. She had

whispered it to him the first moment she looked at him. Her face shimmered before his eyes as he walked

along, pale and serious, sweet and sensitive, smiling with pity and tenderness as only a spirit could smile,

and pure as he had never dreamed purity could be. Her purity smote him like a blow. It startled him. He had

known good and bad; but purity, as an attribute of existence, had never entered his mind. And now, in her, he

conceived purity to be the superlative of goodness and of cleanness, the sum of which constituted eternal life.

And promptly urged his ambition to grasp at eternal life. He was not fit to carry water for her he knew that;

it was a miracle of luck and a fantastic stroke that had enabled him to see her and be with her and talk with

her that night. It was accidental. There was no merit in it. He did not deserve such fortune. His mood was

essentially religious. He was humble and meek, filled with self disparagement and abasement. In such frame

of mind sinners come to the penitent form. He was convicted of sin. But as the meek and lowly at the penitent

form catch splendid glimpses of their future lordly existence, so did he catch similar glimpses of the state he

would gain to by possessing her. But this possession of her was dim and nebulous and totally different from

possession as he had known it. Ambition soared on mad wings, and he saw himself climbing the heights with

her, sharing thoughts with her, pleasuring in beautiful and noble things with her. It was a soul possession he

dreamed, refined beyond any grossness, a free comradeship of spirit that he could not put into definite

thought. He did not think it. For that matter, he did not think at all. Sensation usurped reason, and he was

quivering and palpitant with emotions he had never known, drifting deliciously on a sea of sensibility where

feeling itself was exalted and spiritualized and carried beyond the summits of life.

He staggered along like a drunken man, murmuring fervently aloud: "By God! By God!"

A policeman on a street corner eyed him suspiciously, then noted his sailor roll.

Martin Eden came back to earth. His was a fluid organism, swiftly adjustable, capable of flowing into and

filling all sorts of nooks and crannies. With the policeman's hail he was immediately his ordinary self,

"It's a beaut, ain't it?" he laughed back. "I didn't know I was talkin' out loud."

He lighted his cigarette, said good night, and went on. "Now wouldn't that rattle you?" he ejaculated under his

breath. "That copper thought I was drunk." He smiled to himself and meditated. "I guess I was," he added;

He caught a Telegraph Avenue car that was going to Berkeley. It was crowded with youths and young men

who were singing songs and ever and again barking out college yells. He studied them curiously. They were

university boys. They went to the same university that she did, were in her class socially, could know her,

could see her every day if they wanted to. He wondered that they did not want to, that they had been out

having a good time instead of being with her that evening, talking with her, sitting around her in a worshipful

and adoring circle. His thoughts wandered on. He noticed one with narrowslitted eyes and a loose lipped

mouth. That fellow was vicious, he decided. On shipboard he would be a sneak, a whiner, a tattler. He,

Martin Eden, was a better man than that fellow. The thought cheered him. It seemed to draw him nearer to

Her. He began comparing himself with the students. He grew conscious of the muscled mechanism of his

body and felt confident that he was physically their master. But their heads were filled with knowledge that

enabled them to talk her talk, the thought depressed him. But what was a brain for? he demanded

passionately. What they had done, he could do. They had been studying about life from the books while he

had been busy living life. His brain was just as full of knowledge as theirs, though it was a different kind of

knowledge. How many of them could tie a lanyard knot, or take a wheel or a lookout? His life spread out

before him in a series of pictures of danger and daring, hardship and toil. He remembered his failures and

scrapes in the process of learning. He was that much to the good, anyway. Later on they would have to begin

living life and going through the mill as he had gone. Very well. While they were busy with that, he could be

As the car crossed the zone of scattered dwellings that separated Oakland from Berkeley, he kept a lookout

for a familiar, twostory building along the front of which ran the proud sign, HIGGINBOTHAM'S CASH

STORE. Martin Eden got off at this corner. He stared up for a moment at the sign. It carried a message to him

beyond its mere wording. A personality of smallness and egotism and petty underhandedness seemed to

emanate from the letters themselves. Bernard Higginbotham had married his sister, and he knew him well. He

let himself in with a latchkey and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Here lived his brotherinlaw. The

grocery was below. There was a smell of stale vegetables in the air. As he groped his way across the hall he

stumbled over a toy cart, left there by one of his numerous nephews and nieces, and brought up against a

door with a resounding bang. "The pincher," was his thought; "too miserly to burn two cents' worth of gas

He fumbled for the knob and entered a lighted room, where sat his sister and Bernard Higginbotham. She was

patching a pair of his trousers, while his lean body was distributed over two chairs, his feet dangling in

dilapidated carpetslippers over the edge of the second chair. He glanced across the top of the paper he was

reading, showing a pair of dark, insincere, sharpstaring eyes. Martin Eden never looked at him without

experiencing a sense of repulsion. What his sister had seen in the man was beyond him. The other affected

him as so much vermin, and always aroused in him an impulse to crush him under his foot. "Some day I'll

beat the face off of him," was the way he often consoled himself for enduring the man's existence. The eyes,

"I had that door painted only last week," Mr. Higginbotham half whined, half bullied; "and you know what

Martin had intended to reply, but he was struck by the hopelessness of it. He gazed across the monstrous

sordidness of soul to a chromo on the wall. It surprised him. He had always liked it, but it seemed that now he

was seeing it for the first time. It was cheap, that was what it was, like everything else in this house. His mind

went back to the house he had just left, and he saw, first, the paintings, and next, Her, looking at him with

melting sweetness as she shook his hand at leaving. He forgot where he was and Bernard Higginbotham's

Martin came back and looked at the beady eyes, sneering, truculent, cowardly, and there leaped into his

vision, as on a screen, the same eyes when their owner was making a sale in the store below subservient

He started to leave the room, tripping over a loose seam in the slatternly carpet.

He felt the blood crawl in his veins, but controlled himself and closed the door softly behind him.

"His eyes was pretty shiny," she confessed; "and he didn't have no collar, though he went away with one. But

"He couldn't stand up straight," asserted her husband. "I watched him. He couldn't walk across the floor

Mr. Higginbotham's voice and wrath began to rise. All day he effaced himself in the store, reserving for the

His voice was cold, sharp, and final, his lips stamping the enunciation of each word like the die of a machine.

His wife sighed and remained silent. She was a large, stout woman, always dressed slatternly and always

"He's got it in him, I tell you, from his father," Mr. Higginbotham went on accusingly. "An' he'll croak in the

She nodded, sighed, and went on stitching. They were agreed that Martin had come home drunk. They did

not have it in their souls to know beauty, or they would have known that those shining eyes and that glowing

"Settin' a fine example to the children," Mr. Higginbotham snorted, suddenly, in the silence for which his

wife was responsible and which he resented. Sometimes he almost wished she would oppose him more. "If he

does it again, he's got to get out. Understand! I won't put up with his shinanigan debotchin' innocent

children with his boozing." Mr. Higginbotham liked the word, which was a new one in his vocabulary,

recently gleaned from a newspaper column. "That's what it is, debotchin' there ain't no other name for it."

Still his wife sighed, shook her head sorrowfully, and stitched on. Mr. Higginbotham resumed the newspaper.

"When his payday's spent, I guess," she answered. "He was over to San Francisco yesterday looking for a

ship. But he's got money, yet, an' he's particular about the kind of ship he signs for."

"It's not for a deckswab like him to put on airs," Mr. Higginbotham snorted. "Particular! Him!"

"He said something about a schooner that's gettin' ready to go off to some outlandish place to look for buried

"If he only wanted to steady down, I'd give him a job drivin' the wagon," her husband said, but with no trace

"Quit tonight. Is goin' to work for Carruthers. They paid 'm more'n I could afford."

"I told you you'd lose 'm," she cried out. "He was worth more'n you was giving him."

"Now look here, old woman," Higginbotham bullied, "for the thousandth time I've told you to keep your nose

"I don't care," she sniffled. "Tom was a good boy." Her husband glared at her. This was unqualified defiance.

"If that brother of yours was worth his salt, he could take the wagon," he snorted.

"He pays his board, just the same," was the retort. "An' he's my brother, an' so long as he don't owe you

money you've got no right to be jumping on him all the time. I've got some feelings, if I have been married to

"Did you tell 'm you'd charge him for gas if he goes on readin' in bed?" he demanded.

Mrs. Higginbotham made no reply. Her revolt faded away, her spirit wilting down into her tired flesh. Her

husband was triumphant. He had her. His eyes snapped vindictively, while his ears joyed in the sniffles she

emitted. He extracted great happiness from squelching her, and she squelched easily these days, though it had

been different in the first years of their married life, before the brood of children and his incessant nagging

"Well, you tell 'm tomorrow, that's all," he said. "An' I just want to tell you, before I forget it, that you'd

better send for Marian tomorrow to take care of the children. With Tom quit, I'll have to be out on the

wagon, an' you can make up your mind to it to be down below waitin' on the counter."

Martin Eden, with blood still crawling from contact with his brotherinlaw, felt his way along the unlighted

back hall and entered his room, a tiny cubbyhole with space for a bed, a wash stand, and one chair. Mr.

Higginbotham was too thrifty to keep a servant when his wife could do the work. Besides, the servant's room

enabled them to take in two boarders instead of one. Martin placed the Swinburne and Browning on the chair,

took off his coat, and sat down on the bed. A screeching of asthmatic springs greeted the weight of his body,

but he did not notice them. He started to take off his shoes, but fell to staring at the white plaster wall

opposite him, broken by long streaks of dirty brown where rain had leaked through the roof. On this befouled

background visions began to flow and burn. He forgot his shoes and stared long, till his lips began to move

"Ruth." He had not thought a simple sound could be so beautiful. It delighted his ear, and he grew intoxicated

with the repetition of it. "Ruth." It was a talisman, a magic word to conjure with. Each time he murmured it,

her face shimmered before him, suffusing the foul wall with a golden radiance. This radiance did not stop at

the wall. It extended on into infinity, and through its golden depths his soul went questing after hers. The best

that was in him was out in splendid flood. The very thought of her ennobled and purified him, made him

better, and made him want to be better. This was new to him. He had never known women who had made

him better. They had always had the counter effect of making him beastly. He did not know that many of

them had done their best, bad as it was. Never having been conscious of himself, he did not know that he had

that in his being that drew love from women and which had been the cause of their reaching out for his youth.

Though they had often bothered him, he had never bothered about them; and he would never have dreamed

that there were women who had been better because of him. Always in sublime carelessness had he lived, till

now, and now it seemed to him that they had always reached out and dragged at him with vile hands. This

was not just to them, nor to himself. But he, who for the first time was becoming conscious of himself, was in

no condition to judge, and he burned with shame as he stared at the vision of his infamy.

He got up abruptly and tried to see himself in the dirty looking glass over the washstand. He passed a

towel over it and looked again, long and carefully. It was the first time he had ever really seen himself. His

eyes were made for seeing, but up to that moment they had been filled with the ever changing panorama of

the world, at which he had been too busy gazing, ever to gaze at himself. He saw the head and face of a

young fellow of twenty, but, being unused to such appraisement, he did not know how to value it. Above a

squaredomed forehead he saw a mop of brown hair, nutbrown, with a wave to it and hints of curls that

were a delight to any woman, making hands tingle to stroke it and fingers tingle to pass caresses through it.

But he passed it by as without merit, in Her eyes, and dwelt long and thoughtfully on the high, square

forehead, striving to penetrate it and learn the quality of its content. What kind of a brain lay behind there?

was his insistent interrogation. What was it capable of? How far would it take him? Would it take him to her?

He wondered if there was soul in those steelgray eyes that were often quite blue of color and that were

strong with the briny airs of the sunwashed deep. He wondered, also, how his eyes looked to her. He tried to

imagine himself she, gazing into those eyes of his, but failed in the jugglery. He could successfully put

himself inside other men's minds, but they had to be men whose ways of life he knew. He did not know her

way of life. She was wonder and mystery, and how could he guess one thought of hers? Well, they were

honest eyes, he concluded, and in them was neither smallness nor meanness. The brown sunburn of his face

surprised him. He had not dreamed he was so black. He rolled up his shirtsleeve and compared the white

underside if the arm with his face. Yes, he was a white man, after all. But the arms were sunburned, too. He

twisted his arm, rolled the biceps over with his other hand, and gazed underneath where he was least touched

by the sun. It was very white. He laughed at his bronzed face in the glass at the thought that it was once as

white as the underside of his arm; nor did he dream that in the world there were few pale spirits of women

who could boast fairer or smoother skins than he fairer than where he had escaped the ravages of the sun.

His might have been a cherub's mouth, had not the full, sensuous lips a trick, under stress, of drawing firmly

across the teeth. At times, so tightly did they draw, the mouth became stern and harsh, even ascetic. They

were the lips of a fighter and of a lover. They could taste the sweetness of life with relish, and they could put

the sweetness aside and command life. The chin and jaw, strong and just hinting of square aggressiveness,

helped the lips to command life. Strength balanced sensuousness and had upon it a tonic effect, compelling

him to love beauty that was healthy and making him vibrate to sensations that were wholesome. And between

the lips were teeth that had never known nor needed the dentist's care. They were white and strong and

regular, he decided, as he looked at them. But as he looked, he began to be troubled. Somewhere, stored away

in the recesses of his mind and vaguely remembered, was the impression that there were people who washed

their teeth every day. They were the people from up above people in her class. She must wash her teeth

every day, too. What would she think if she learned that he had never washed his teeth in all the days of his

life? He resolved to get a toothbrush and form the habit. He would begin at once, tomorrow. It was not by

mere achievement that he could hope to win to her. He must make a personal reform in all things, even to

toothwashing and neckgear, though a starched collar affected him as a renunciation of freedom.

He held up his hand, rubbing the ball of the thumb over the calloused palm and gazing at the dirt that was

ingrained in the flesh itself and which no brush could scrub away. How different was her palm! He thrilled

deliciously at the remembrance. Like a rosepetal, he thought; cool and soft as a snowflake. He had never

thought that a mere woman's hand could be so sweetly soft. He caught himself imagining the wonder of a

caress from such a hand, and flushed guiltily. It was too gross a thought for her. In ways it seemed to impugn

her high spirituality. She was a pale, slender spirit, exalted far beyond the flesh; but nevertheless the softness

of her palm persisted in his thoughts. He was used to the harsh callousness of factory girls and working

women. Well he knew why their hands were rough; but this hand of hers . . . It was soft because she had

never used it to work with. The gulf yawned between her and him at the awesome thought of a person who

did not have to work for a living. He suddenly saw the aristocracy of the people who did not labor. It towered

before him on the wall, a figure in brass, arrogant and powerful. He had worked himself; his first memories

seemed connected with work, and all his family had worked. There was Gertrude. When her hands were not

hard from the endless housework, they were swollen and red like boiled beef, what of the washing. And there

was his sister Marian. She had worked in the cannery the preceding summer, and her slim, pretty hands were

all scarred with the tomatoknives. Besides, the tips of two of her fingers had been left in the cutting machine

at the paper box factory the preceding winter. He remembered the hard palms of his mother as she lay in her

coffin. And his father had worked to the last fading gasp; the horned growth on his hands must have been half

an inch thick when he died. But Her hands were soft, and her mother's hands, and her brothers'. This last

came to him as a surprise; it was tremendously indicative of the highness of their caste, of the enormous

He sat back on the bed with a bitter laugh, and finished taking off his shoes. He was a fool; he had been made

drunken by a woman's face and by a woman's soft, white hands. And then, suddenly, before his eyes, on the

foul plasterwall appeared a vision. He stood in front of a gloomy tenement house. It was nighttime, in the

East End of London, and before him stood Margey, a little factory girl of fifteen. He had seen her home after

the bean feast. She lived in that gloomy tenement, a place not fit for swine. His hand was going out to hers

as he said good night. She had put her lips up to be kissed, but he wasn't going to kiss her. Somehow he was

afraid of her. And then her hand closed on his and pressed feverishly. He felt her callouses grind and grate on

his, and a great wave of pity welled over him. He saw her yearning, hungry eyes, and her illfed female form

which had been rushed from childhood into a frightened and ferocious maturity; then he put his arms about

her in large tolerance and stooped and kissed her on the lips. Her glad little cry rang in his ears, and he felt

her clinging to him like a cat. Poor little starveling! He continued to stare at the vision of what had happened

in the long ago. His flesh was crawling as it had crawled that night when she clung to him, and his heart was

warm with pity. It was a gray scene, greasy gray, and the rain drizzled greasily on the pavement stones. And

then a radiant glory shone on the wall, and up through the other vision, displacing it, glimmered Her pale face

He took the Browning and the Swinburne from the chair and kissed them. Just the same, she told me to call

again, he thought. He took another look at himself in the glass, and said aloud, with great solemnity:

"Martin Eden, the first thing tomorrow you go to the free library an' read up on etiquette. Understand!"

"But you've got to quit cussin', Martin, old boy; you've got to quit cussin'," he said aloud.

Then he dozed off to sleep and to dream dreams that for madness and audacity rivalled those of

He awoke next morning from rosy scenes of dream to a steamy atmosphere that smelled of soapsuds and

dirty clothes, and that was vibrant with the jar and jangle of tormented life. As he came out of his room he

heard the slosh of water, a sharp exclamation, and a resounding smack as his sister visited her irritation upon

one of her numerous progeny. The squall of the child went through him like a knife. He was aware that the

whole thing, the very air he breathed, was repulsive and mean. How different, he thought, from the

atmosphere of beauty and repose of the house wherein Ruth dwelt. There it was all spiritual. Here it was all

"Come here, Alfred," he called to the crying child, at the same time thrusting his hand into his trousers

pocket, where he carried his money loose in the same large way that he lived life in general. He put a quarter

in the youngster's hand and held him in his arms a moment, soothing his sobs. "Now run along and get some

candy, and don't forget to give some to your brothers and sisters. Be sure and get the kind that lasts longest."

"A nickel'd ha' ben enough," she said. "It's just like you, no idea of the value of money. The child'll eat

"That's all right, sis," he answered jovially. "My money'll take care of itself. If you weren't so busy, I'd kiss

He wanted to be affectionate to this sister, who was good, and who, in her way, he knew, loved him. But,

somehow, she grew less herself as the years went by, and more and more baffling. It was the hard work, the

many children, and the nagging of her husband, he decided, that had changed her. It came to him, in a flash of

fancy, that her nature seemed taking on the attributes of stale vegetables, smelly soapsuds, and of the greasy

"Go along an' get your breakfast," she said roughly, though secretly pleased. Of all her wandering brood of

brothers he had always been her favorite. "I declare I WILL kiss you," she said, with a sudden stir at her

With thumb and forefinger she swept the dripping suds first from one arm and then from the other. He put his

arms round her massive waist and kissed her wet steamy lips. The tears welled into her eyes not so much

from strength of feeling as from the weakness of chronic overwork. She shoved him away from her, but not

"You'll find breakfast in the oven," she said hurriedly. "Jim ought to be up now. I had to get up early for the

washing. Now get along with you and get out of the house early. It won't be nice today, what of Tom quittin'

Martin went into the kitchen with a sinking heart, the image of her red face and slatternly form eating its way

like acid into his brain. She might love him if she only had some time, he concluded. But she was worked to

death. Bernard Higginbotham was a brute to work her so hard. But he could not help but feel, on the other

hand, that there had not been anything beautiful in that kiss. It was true, it was an unusual kiss. For years she

had kissed him only when he returned from voyages or departed on voyages. But this kiss had tasted

soapsuds, and the lips, he had noticed, were flabby. There had been no quick, vigorous lippressure such as

should accompany any kiss. Hers was the kiss of a tired woman who had been tired so long that she had

forgotten how to kiss. He remembered her as a girl, before her marriage, when she would dance with the best,

all night, after a hard day's work at the laundry, and think nothing of leaving the dance to go to another day's

hard work. And then he thought of Ruth and the cool sweetness that must reside in her lips as it resided in all

about her. Her kiss would be like her handshake or the way she looked at one, firm and frank. In

imagination he dared to think of her lips on his, and so vividly did he imagine that he went dizzy at the

thought and seemed to rift through clouds of rosepetals, filling his brain with their perfume.

In the kitchen he found Jim, the other boarder, eating mush very languidly, with a sick, faraway look in his

eyes. Jim was a plumber's apprentice whose weak chin and hedonistic temperament, coupled with a certain

nervous stupidity, promised to take him nowhere in the race for bread and butter.

"Why don't you eat?" he demanded, as Martin dipped dolefully into the cold, halfcooked oatmeal mush.

Martin shook his head. He was oppressed by the utter squalidness of it all. Ruth Morse seemed farther

"I was," Jim went on with a boastful, nervous giggle. "I was loaded right to the neck. Oh, she was a daisy.

Martin nodded that he heard, it was a habit of nature with him to pay heed to whoever talked to him, and

"Goin' to the Lotus Club dance tonight?" Jim demanded. "They're goin' to have beer, an' if that Temescal

bunch comes, there'll be a roughhouse. I don't care, though. I'm takin' my lady friend just the same. Cripes,

"She's my lady friend," Jim explained, "and she's a peach. I'd introduce you to her, only you'd win her. I don't

see what the girls see in you, honest I don't; but the way you win them away from the fellers is sickenin'."

"I never got any away from you," Martin answered uninterestedly. The breakfast had to be got through

"Never had anything to do with her. Never danced with her except that one night."

"Yes, an' that's just what did it," Jim cried out. "You just danced with her an' looked at her, an' it was all off.

Of course you didn't mean nothin' by it, but it settled me for keeps. Wouldn't look at me again. Always askin'

"Wasn't necessary. I was left at the pole." Jim looked at him admiringly. "How d'ye do it, anyway, Mart?"

Martin considered for a moment, then answered, "Perhaps that will do, but with me I guess it's different. I

"You should 'a' ben up at Riley's barn last night," Jim announced inconsequently. "A lot of the fellers put on

the gloves. There was a peach from West Oakland. They called 'm 'The Rat.' Slick as silk. No one could

He went downstairs and out into the street, breathing great breaths of air. He had been suffocating in that

atmosphere, while the apprentice's chatter had driven him frantic. There had been times when it was all he

could do to refrain from reaching over and mopping Jim's face in the mushplate. The more he had chattered,

the more remote had Ruth seemed to him. How could he, herding with such cattle, ever become worthy of

her? He was appalled at the problem confronting him, weighted down by the incubus of his workingclass

station. Everything reached out to hold him down his sister, his sister's house and family, Jim the

apprentice, everybody he knew, every tie of life. Existence did not taste good in his mouth. Up to then he had

accepted existence, as he had lived it with all about him, as a good thing. He had never questioned it, except

when he read books; but then, they were only books, fairy stories of a fairer and impossible world. But now

he had seen that world, possible and real, with a flower of a woman called Ruth in the midmost centre of it;

and thenceforth he must know bitter tastes, and longings sharp as pain, and hopelessness that tantalized

He had debated between the Berkeley Free Library and the Oakland Free Library, and decided upon the latter

because Ruth lived in Oakland. Who could tell? a library was a most likely place for her, and he might see

her there. He did not know the way of libraries, and he wandered through endless rows of fiction, till the

delicatefeatured Frenchlooking girl who seemed in charge, told him that the reference department was

upstairs. He did not know enough to ask the man at the desk, and began his adventures in the philosophy

alcove. He had heard of book philosophy, but had not imagined there had been so much written about it. The

high, bulging shelves of heavy tomes humbled him and at the same time stimulated him. Here was work for

the vigor of his brain. He found books on trigonometry in the mathematics section, and ran the pages, and

stared at the meaningless formulas and figures. He could read English, but he saw there an alien speech.

Norman and Arthur knew that speech. He had heard them talking it. And they were her brothers. He left the

alcove in despair. From every side the books seemed to press upon him and crush him.

He had never dreamed that the fund of human knowledge bulked so big. He was frightened. How could his

brain ever master it all? Later, he remembered that there were other men, many men, who had mastered it;

and he breathed a great oath, passionately, under his breath, swearing that his brain could do what theirs had

And so he wandered on, alternating between depression and elation as he stared at the shelves packed with

wisdom. In one miscellaneous section he came upon a "Norrie's Epitome." He turned the pages reverently. In

a way, it spoke a kindred speech. Both he and it were of the sea. Then he found a "Bowditch" and books by

Lecky and Marshall. There it was; he would teach himself navigation. He would quit drinking, work up, and

become a captain. Ruth seemed very near to him in that moment. As a captain, he could marry her (if she

would have him). And if she wouldn't, well he would live a good life among men, because of Her, and he

would quit drinking anyway. Then he remembered the underwriters and the owners, the two masters a captain

must serve, either of which could and would break him and whose interests were diametrically opposed. He

cast his eyes about the room and closed the lids down on a vision of ten thousand books. No; no more of the

sea for him. There was power in all that wealth of books, and if he would do great things, he must do them on

the land. Besides, captains were not allowed to take their wives to sea with them.

Noon came, and afternoon. He forgot to eat, and sought on for the books on etiquette; for, in addition to

career, his mind was vexed by a simple and very concrete problem: WHEN YOU MEET A YOUNG LADY

AND SHE ASKS YOU TO CALL, HOW SOON CAN YOU CALL? was the way he worded it to himself.

But when he found the right shelf, he sought vainly for the answer. He was appalled at the vast edifice of

etiquette, and lost himself in the mazes of visitingcard conduct between persons in polite society. He

abandoned his search. He had not found what he wanted, though he had found that it would take all of a

man's time to be polite, and that he would have to live a preliminary life in which to learn how to be polite.

"Did you find what you wanted?" the man at the desk asked him as he was leaving.

And for the first block along the street he walked very stiff and straight and awkwardly, until he forgot

A terrible restlessness that was akin to hunger afflicted Martin Eden. He was famished for a sight of the girl

whose slender hands had gripped his life with a giant's grasp. He could not steel himself to call upon her. He

was afraid that he might call too soon, and so be guilty of an awful breach of that awful thing called etiquette.

He spent long hours in the Oakland and Berkeley libraries, and made out application blanks for membership

for himself, his sisters Gertrude and Marian, and Jim, the latter's consent being obtained at the expense of

several glasses of beer. With four cards permitting him to draw books, he burned the gas late in the servant's

The many books he read but served to whet his unrest. Every page of every book was a peephole into the

realm of knowledge. His hunger fed upon what he read, and increased. Also, he did not know where to begin,

and continually suffered from lack of preparation. The commonest references, that he could see plainly every

reader was expected to know, he did not know. And the same was true of the poetry he read which maddened

him with delight. He read more of Swinburne than was contained in the volume Ruth had lent him; and

"Dolores" he understood thoroughly. But surely Ruth did not understand it, he concluded. How could she,

living the refined life she did? Then he chanced upon Kipling's poems, and was swept away by the lilt and

swing and glamour with which familiar things had been invested. He was amazed at the man's sympathy with

life and at his incisive psychology. PSYCHOLOGY was a new word in Martin's vocabulary. He had bought a

dictionary, which deed had decreased his supply of money and brought nearer the day on which he must sail

in search of more. Also, it incensed Mr. Higginbotham, who would have preferred the money taking the form

He dared not go near Ruth's neighborhood in the daytime, but night found him lurking like a thief around the

Morse home, stealing glimpses at the windows and loving the very walls that sheltered her. Several times he

barely escaped being caught by her brothers, and once he trailed Mr. Morse down town and studied his face

in the lighted streets, longing all the while for some quick danger of death to threaten so that he might spring

in and save her father. On another night, his vigil was rewarded by a glimpse of Ruth through a secondstory

window. He saw only her head and shoulders, and her arms raised as she fixed her hair before a mirror. It was

only for a moment, but it was a long moment to him, during which his blood turned to wine and sang through

his veins. Then she pulled down the shade. But it was her room he had learned that; and thereafter he

strayed there often, hiding under a dark tree on the opposite side of the street and smoking countless

cigarettes. One afternoon he saw her mother coming out of a bank, and received another proof of the

enormous distance that separated Ruth from him. She was of the class that dealt with banks. He had never

been inside a bank in his life, and he had an idea that such institutions were frequented only by the very rich

In one way, he had undergone a moral revolution. Her cleanness and purity had reacted upon him, and he felt

in his being a crying need to be clean. He must be that if he were ever to be worthy of breathing the same air

with her. He washed his teeth, and scrubbed his hands with a kitchen scrubbrush till he saw a nailbrush in

a drugstore window and divined its use. While purchasing it, the clerk glanced at his nails, suggested a

nailfile, and so he became possessed of an additional toilettool. He ran across a book in the library on the

care of the body, and promptly developed a penchant for a coldwater bath every morning, much to the

amazement of Jim, and to the bewilderment of Mr. Higginbotham, who was not in sympathy with such

highfangled notions and who seriously debated whether or not he should charge Martin extra for the water.

Another stride was in the direction of creased trousers. Now that Martin was aroused in such matters, he

swiftly noted the difference between the baggy knees of the trousers worn by the working class and the

straight line from knee to foot of those worn by the men above the working class. Also, he learned the reason

why, and invaded his sister's kitchen in search of irons and ironingboard. He had misadventures at first,

hopelessly burning one pair and buying another, which expenditure again brought nearer the day on which he

But the reform went deeper than mere outward appearance. He still smoked, but he drank no more. Up to that

time, drinking had seemed to him the proper thing for men to do, and he had prided himself on his strong

head which enabled him to drink most men under the table. Whenever he encountered a chance shipmate, and

there were many in San Francisco, he treated them and was treated in turn, as of old, but he ordered for

himself root beer or ginger ale and goodnaturedly endured their chaffing. And as they waxed maudlin he

studied them, watching the beast rise and master them and thanking God that he was no longer as they. They

had their limitations to forget, and when they were drunk, their dim, stupid spirits were even as gods, and

each ruled in his heaven of intoxicated desire. With Martin the need for strong drink had vanished. He was

drunken in new and more profound ways with Ruth, who had fired him with love and with a glimpse of

higher and eternal life; with books, that had set a myriad maggots of desire gnawing in his brain; and with the

sense of personal cleanliness he was achieving, that gave him even more superb health than what he had

One night he went to the theatre, on the blind chance that he might see her there, and from the second balcony

he did see her. He saw her come down the aisle, with Arthur and a strange young man with a football mop of

hair and eyeglasses, the sight of whom spurred him to instant apprehension and jealousy. He saw her take her

seat in the orchestra circle, and little else than her did he see that night a pair of slender white shoulders and

a mass of pale gold hair, dim with distance. But there were others who saw, and now and again, glancing at

those about him, he noted two young girls who looked back from the row in front, a dozen seats along, and

who smiled at him with bold eyes. He had always been easygoing. It was not in his nature to give rebuff. In

the old days he would have smiled back, and gone further and encouraged smiling. But now it was different.

He did smile back, then looked away, and looked no more deliberately. But several times, forgetting the

existence of the two girls, his eyes caught their smiles. He could not re thumb himself in a day, nor could he

violate the intrinsic kindliness of his nature; so, at such moments, he smiled at the girls in warm human

friendliness. It was nothing new to him. He knew they were reaching out their woman's hands to him. But it

was different now. Far down there in the orchestra circle was the one woman in all the world, so different, so

terrifically different, from these two girls of his class, that he could feel for them only pity and sorrow. He

had it in his heart to wish that they could possess, in some small measure, her goodness and glory. And not

for the world could he hurt them because of their outreaching. He was not flattered by it; he even felt a slight

shame at his lowliness that permitted it. He knew, did he belong in Ruth's class, that there would be no

overtures from these girls; and with each glance of theirs he felt the fingers of his own class clutching at him

He left his seat before the curtain went down on the last act, intent on seeing Her as she passed out. There

were always numbers of men who stood on the sidewalk outside, and he could pull his cap down over his

eyes and screen himself behind some one's shoulder so that she should not see him. He emerged from the

theatre with the first of the crowd; but scarcely had he taken his position on the edge of the sidewalk when the

two girls appeared. They were looking for him, he knew; and for the moment he could have cursed that in

him which drew women. Their casual edging across the sidewalk to the curb, as they drew near, apprised him

of discovery. They slowed down, and were in the thick of the crown as they came up with him. One of them

brushed against him and apparently for the first time noticed him. She was a slender, dark girl, with black,

It was automatic; he had said it so often before under similar circumstances of first meetings. Besides, he

could do no less. There was that large tolerance and sympathy in his nature that would permit him to do no

less. The blackeyed girl smiled gratification and greeting, and showed signs of stopping, while her

companion, arm linked in arm, giggled and likewise showed signs of halting. He thought quickly. It would

never do for Her to come out and see him talking there with them. Quite naturally, as a matter of course, he

swung in alongside the darkeyed one and walked with her. There was no awkwardness on his part, no

numb tongue. He was at home here, and he held his own royally in the badinage, bristling with slang and

sharpness, that was always the preliminary to getting acquainted in these swiftmoving affairs. At the corner

where the main stream of people flowed onward, he started to edge out into the cross street. But the girl with

the black eyes caught his arm, following him and dragging her companion after her, as she cried:

"Hold on, Bill! What's yer rush? You're not goin' to shake us so sudden as all that?"

He halted with a laugh, and turned, facing them. Across their shoulders he could see the moving throng

passing under the street lamps. Where he stood it was not so light, and, unseen, he would be able to see Her

"You never asked it," he smiled. "Besides, you guessed the first rattle. It's Bill, all right, all right."

"Aw, go 'long with you." She looked him in the eyes, her own sharply passionate and inviting. "What is it,

Again she looked. All the centuries of woman since sex began were eloquent in her eyes. And he measured

her in a careless way, and knew, bold now, that she would begin to retreat, coyly and delicately, as he

pursued, ever ready to reverse the game should he turn fainthearted. And, too, he was human, and could feel

the draw of her, while his ego could not but appreciate the flattery of her kindness. Oh, he knew it all, and

knew them well, from A to Z. Good, as goodness might be measured in their particular class, hardworking

for meagre wages and scorning the sale of self for easier ways, nervously desirous for some small pinch of

happiness in the desert of existence, and facing a future that was a gamble between the ugliness of unending

toil and the black pit of more terrible wretchedness, the way whereto being briefer though better paid.

She reached out to his arm and shook him playfully. "I knew you was lyin', but you look good to me just the

He captured the hand that invited, and felt on the palm familiar markings and distortions.

And while he exchanged the stupidities of stupid minds with them, before his inner sight towered the

bookshelves of the library, filled with the wisdom of the ages. He smiled bitterly at the incongruity of it, and

was assailed by doubts. But between inner vision and outward pleasantry he found time to watch the theatre

crowd streaming by. And then he saw Her, under the lights, between her brother and the strange young man

with glasses, and his heart seemed to stand still. He had waited long for this moment. He had time to note the

light, fluffy something that hid her queenly head, the tasteful lines of her wrapped figure, the gracefulness of

her carriage and of the hand that caught up her skirts; and then she was gone and he was left staring at the two

girls of the cannery, at their tawdry attempts at prettiness of dress, their tragic efforts to be clean and trim, the

cheap cloth, the cheap ribbons, and the cheap rings on the fingers. He felt a tug at his arm, and heard a voice

"Oh, nothin'," the dark girl answered, with a toss of her head. "I was only remarkin' "

"Well, I was whisperin' it'd be a good idea if you could dig up a gentleman friend for her" (indicating her

companion), "and then, we could go off an' have icecream soda somewhere, or coffee, or anything."

He was afflicted by a sudden spiritual nausea. The transition from Ruth to this had been too abrupt. Ranged

side by side with the bold, defiant eyes of the girl before him, he saw Ruth's clear, luminous eyes, like a

saint's, gazing at him out of unplumbed depths of purity. And, somehow, he felt within him a stir of power.

He was better than this. Life meant more to him than it meant to these two girls whose thoughts did not go

beyond icecream and a gentleman friend. He remembered that he had led always a secret life in his

thoughts. These thoughts he had tried to share, but never had he found a woman capable of understanding

nor a man. He had tried, at times, but had only puzzled his listeners. And as his thoughts had been beyond

them, so, he argued now, he must be beyond them. He felt power move in him, and clenched his fists. If life

meant more to him, then it was for him to demand more from life, but he could not demand it from such

companionship as this. Those bold black eyes had nothing to offer. He knew the thoughts behind them of

icecream and of something else. But those saint's eyes alongside they offered all he knew and more than

he could guess. They offered books and painting, beauty and repose, and all the fine elegance of higher

existence. Behind those black eyes he knew every thought process. It was like clockwork. He could watch

every wheel go around. Their bid was low pleasure, narrow as the grave, that palled, and the grave was at the

end of it. But the bid of the saint's eyes was mystery, and wonder unthinkable, and eternal life. He had caught

"There's only one thing wrong with the programme," he said aloud. "I've got a date already."

He looked her in the eyes and answered: "It's straight, all right. But why can't we meet some other time? You

"Lizzie," she replied, softening toward him, her hand pressing his arm, while her body leaned against his.

He talked on a few minutes before saying good night. He did not go home immediately; and under the tree

where he kept his vigils he looked up at a window and murmured: "That date was with you, Ruth. I kept it for

A week of heavy reading had passed since the evening he first met Ruth Morse, and still he dared not call.

Time and again he nerved himself up to call, but under the doubts that assailed him his determination died

away. He did not know the proper time to call, nor was there any one to tell him, and he was afraid of

committing himself to an irretrievable blunder. Having shaken himself free from his old companions and old

ways of life, and having no new companions, nothing remained for him but to read, and the long hours he

devoted to it would have ruined a dozen pairs of ordinary eyes. But his eyes were strong, and they were

backed by a body superbly strong. Furthermore, his mind was fallow. It had lain fallow all his life so far as

the abstract thought of the books was concerned, and it was ripe for the sowing. It had never been jaded by

study, and it bit hold of the knowledge in the books with sharp teeth that would not let go.

It seemed to him, by the end of the week, that he had lived centuries, so far behind were the old life and

outlook. But he was baffled by lack of preparation. He attempted to read books that required years of

preliminary specialization. One day he would read a book of antiquated philosophy, and the next day one that

was ultramodern, so that his head would be whirling with the conflict and contradiction of ideas. It was the

same with the economists. On the one shelf at the library he found Karl Marx, Ricardo, Adam Smith, and

Mill, and the abstruse formulas of the one gave no clew that the ideas of another were obsolete. He was

bewildered, and yet he wanted to know. He had become interested, in a day, in economics, industry, and

politics. Passing through the City Hall Park, he had noticed a group of men, in the centre of which were half a

dozen, with flushed faces and raised voices, earnestly carrying on a discussion. He joined the listeners, and

heard a new, alien tongue in the mouths of the philosophers of the people. One was a tramp, another was a

labor agitator, a third was a law school student, and the remainder was composed of wordy workingmen.

For the first time he heard of socialism, anarchism, and single tax, and learned that there were warring social

philosophies. He heard hundreds of technical words that were new to him, belonging to fields of thought that

his meagre reading had never touched upon. Because of this he could not follow the arguments closely, and

he could only guess at and surmise the ideas wrapped up in such strange expressions. Then there was a

blackeyed restaurant waiter who was a theosophist, a union baker who was an agnostic, an old man who

baffled all of them with the strange philosophy that WHAT IS IS RIGHT, and another old man who

Martin Eden's head was in a state of addlement when he went away after several hours, and he hurried to the

library to look up the definitions of a dozen unusual words. And when he left the library, he carried under his

arm four volumes: Madam Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine," "Progress and Poverty," "The Quintessence of

Socialism," and, "Warfare of Religion and Science." Unfortunately, he began on the "Secret Doctrine." Every

line bristled with many syllabled words he did not understand. He sat up in bed, and the dictionary was in

front of him more often than the book. He looked up so many new words that when they recurred, he had

forgotten their meaning and had to look them up again. He devised the plan of writing the definitions in a

notebook, and filled page after page with them. And still he could not understand. He read until three in the

morning, and his brain was in a turmoil, but not one essential thought in the text had he grasped. He looked

up, and it seemed that the room was lifting, heeling, and plunging like a ship upon the sea. Then he hurled the

"Secret Doctrine" and many curses across the room, turned off the gas, and composed himself to sleep. Nor

did he have much better luck with the other three books. It was not that his brain was weak or incapable; it

could think these thoughts were it not for lack of training in thinking and lack of the thoughttools with

which to think. He guessed this, and for a while entertained the idea of reading nothing but the dictionary

Poetry, however, was his solace, and he read much of it, finding his greatest joy in the simpler poets, who

were more understandable. He loved beauty, and there he found beauty. Poetry, like music, stirred him

profoundly, and, though he did not know it, he was preparing his mind for the heavier work that was to come.

The pages of his mind were blank, and, without effort, much he read and liked, stanza by stanza, was

impressed upon those pages, so that he was soon able to extract great joy from chanting aloud or under his

breath the music and the beauty of the printed words he had read. Then he stumbled upon Gayley's "Classic

Myths" and Bulfinch's "Age of Fable," side by side on a library shelf. It was illumination, a great light in the

The man at the desk in the library had seen Martin there so often that he had become quite cordial, always

greeting him with a smile and a nod when he entered. It was because of this that Martin did a daring thing.

Drawing out some books at the desk, and while the man was stamping the cards, Martin blurted out:

Martin felt his shirt press and cling to his shoulders, what of the sweat of the effort.

"Yes, but this is different," Martin objected. "She I well, you see, it's this way: maybe she won't be there.

"What I said ain't what I meant," Martin confessed falteringly, while he made up his mind to throw himself

wholly upon the other's mercy. "I'm just a rough sort of a fellow, an' I ain't never seen anything of society.

This girl is all that I ain't, an' I ain't anything that she is. You don't think I'm playin' the fool, do you?" he

"No, no; not at all, I assure you," the other protested. "Your request is not exactly in the scope of the

"What is the best time to call? The afternoon? not too close to mealtime? Or the evening? Or Sunday?"

"I'll tell you," the librarian said with a brightening face. "You call her up on the telephone and find out."

"When you're speakin' to a young lady say, for instance, Miss Lizzie Smith do you say 'Miss Lizzie'? or

"Say 'Miss Smith,'" the librarian stated authoritatively. "Say 'Miss Smith' always until you come to know

"Come down any time; I'll be at home all afternoon," was Ruth's reply over the telephone to his stammered

She met him at the door herself, and her woman's eyes took in immediately the creased trousers and the

certain slight but indefinable change in him for the better. Also, she was struck by his face. It was almost

violent, this health of his, and it seemed to rush out of him and at her in waves of force. She felt the urge

again of the desire to lean toward him for warmth, and marvelled again at the effect his presence produced

upon her. And he, in turn, knew again the swimming sensation of bliss when he felt the contact of her hand in

greeting. The difference between them lay in that she was cool and selfpossessed while his face flushed to

the roots of the hair. He stumbled with his old awkwardness after her, and his shoulders swung and lurched

Once they were seated in the livingroom, he began to get on easily more easily by far than he had

expected. She made it easy for him; and the gracious spirit with which she did it made him love her more

madly than ever. They talked first of the borrowed books, of the Swinburne he was devoted to, and of the

Browning he did not understand; and she led the conversation on from subject to subject, while she pondered

the problem of how she could be of help to him. She had thought of this often since their first meeting. She

wanted to help him. He made a call upon her pity and tenderness that no one had ever made before, and the

pity was not so much derogatory of him as maternal in her. Her pity could not be of the common sort, when

the man who drew it was so much man as to shock her with maidenly fears and set her mind and pulse

thrilling with strange thoughts and feelings. The old fascination of his neck was there, and there was

sweetness in the thought of laying her hands upon it. It seemed still a wanton impulse, but she had grown

more used to it. She did not dream that in such guise newborn love would epitomize itself. Nor did she

dream that the feeling he excited in her was love. She thought she was merely interested in him as an unusual

type possessing various potential excellencies, and she even felt philanthropic about it.

She did not know she desired him; but with him it was different. He knew that he loved her, and he desired

her as he had never before desired anything in his life. He had loved poetry for beauty's sake; but since he

met her the gates to the vast field of lovepoetry had been opened wide. She had given him understanding

even more than Bulfinch and Gayley. There was a line that a week before he would not have favored with a

second thought "God's own mad lover dying on a kiss"; but now it was ever insistent in his mind. He

marvelled at the wonder of it and the truth; and as he gazed upon her he knew that he could die gladly upon a

kiss. He felt himself God's own mad lover, and no accolade of knighthood could have given him greater

As he gazed at her and listened, his thoughts grew daring. He reviewed all the wild delight of the pressure of

her hand in his at the door, and longed for it again. His gaze wandered often toward her lips, and he yearned

for them hungrily. But there was nothing gross or earthly about this yearning. It gave him exquisite delight to

watch every movement and play of those lips as they enunciated the words she spoke; yet they were not

ordinary lips such as all men and women had. Their substance was not mere human clay. They were lips of

pure spirit, and his desire for them seemed absolutely different from the desire that had led him to other

women's lips. He could kiss her lips, rest his own physical lips upon them, but it would be with the lofty and

awful fervor with which one would kiss the robe of God. He was not conscious of this transvaluation of

values that had taken place in him, and was unaware that the light that shone in his eyes when he looked at

her was quite the same light that shines in all men's eyes when the desire of love is upon them. He did not

dream how ardent and masculine his gaze was, nor that the warm flame of it was affecting the alchemy of her

spirit. Her penetrative virginity exalted and disguised his own emotions, elevating his thoughts to a starcool

chastity, and he would have been startled to learn that there was that shining out of his eyes, like warm

waves, that flowed through her and kindled a kindred warmth. She was subtly perturbed by it, and more than

once, though she knew not why, it disrupted her train of thought with its delicious intrusion and compelled

her to grope for the remainder of ideas partly uttered. Speech was always easy with her, and these

interruptions would have puzzled her had she not decided that it was because he was a remarkable type. She

was very sensitive to impressions, and it was not strange, after all, that this aura of a traveller from another

The problem in the background of her consciousness was how to help him, and she turned the conversation in

"I wonder if I can get some advice from you," he began, and received an acquiescence of willingness that

made his heart bound. "You remember the other time I was here I said I couldn't talk about books an' things

because I didn't know how? Well, I've ben doin' a lot of thinkin' ever since. I've ben to the library a whole lot,

but most of the books I've tackled have ben over my head. Mebbe I'd better begin at the beginnin'. I ain't

never had no advantages. I've worked pretty hard ever since I was a kid, an' since I've ben to the library,

lookin' with new eyes at books an' lookin' at new books, too I've just about concluded that I ain't ben

reading the right kind. You know the books you find in cattle camps an' fo'c's'ls ain't the same you've got in

this house, for instance. Well, that's the sort of readin' matter I've ben accustomed to. And yet an' I ain't just

makin' a brag of it I've ben different from the people I've herded with. Not that I'm any better than the

sailors an' cowpunchers I travelled with, I was cowpunchin' for a short time, you know, but I always

liked books, read everything I could lay hands on, an' well, I guess I think differently from most of 'em.

"Now, to come to what I'm drivin' at. I was never inside a house like this. When I come a week ago, an' saw

all this, an' you, an' your mother, an' brothers, an' everything well, I liked it. I'd heard about such things an'

read about such things in some of the books, an' when I looked around at your house, why, the books come

true. But the thing I'm after is I liked it. I wanted it. I want it now. I want to breathe air like you get in this

house air that is filled with books, and pictures, and beautiful things, where people talk in low voices an' are

clean, an' their thoughts are clean. The air I always breathed was mixed up with grub an' houserent an'

scrappin' an booze an' that's all they talked about, too. Why, when you was crossin' the room to kiss your

mother, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I ever seen. I've seen a whole lot of life, an' somehow I've

seen a whole lot more of it than most of them that was with me. I like to see, an' I want to see more, an' I want

"But I ain't got to the point yet. Here it is. I want to make my way to the kind of life you have in this house.

There's more in life than booze, an' hard work, an' knockin' about. Now, how am I goin' to get it? Where do I

take hold an' begin? I'm willin' to work my passage, you know, an' I can make most men sick when it comes

to hard work. Once I get started, I'll work night an' day. Mebbe you think it's funny, me askin' you about all

this. I know you're the last person in the world I ought to ask, but I don't know anybody else I could ask

His voice died away. His firmly planned intention had come to a halt on the verge of the horrible probability

that he should have asked Arthur and that he had made a fool of himself. Ruth did not speak immediately.

She was too absorbed in striving to reconcile the stumbling, uncouth speech and its simplicity of thought with

what she saw in his face. She had never looked in eyes that expressed greater power. Here was a man who

could do anything, was the message she read there, and it accorded ill with the weakness of his spoken

thought. And for that matter so complex and quick was her own mind that she did not have a just appreciation

of simplicity. And yet she had caught an impression of power in the very groping of this mind. It had seemed

to her like a giant writhing and straining at the bonds that held him down. Her face was all sympathy when

"What you need, you realize yourself, and it is education. You should go back and finish grammar school,

"Oh!" she cried. "I had not thought of that. But then you have relatives, somebody who could assist you?"

"My father and mother are dead. I've two sisters, one married, an' the other'll get married soon, I suppose.

Then I've a string of brothers, I'm the youngest, but they never helped nobody. They've just knocked

around over the world, lookin' out for number one. The oldest died in India. Two are in South Africa now, an'

another's on a whaling voyage, an' one's travellin' with a circus he does trapeze work. An' I guess I'm just

like them. I've taken care of myself since I was eleven that's when my mother died. I've got to study by

"I should say the first thing of all would be to get a grammar. Your grammar is " She had intended saying

"I know I must talk a lot of slang an' words you don't understand. But then they're the only words I know

how to speak. I've got other words in my mind, picked 'em up from books, but I can't pronounce 'em, so I

"It isn't what you say, so much as how you say it. You don't mind my being frank, do you? I don't want to

"No, no," he cried, while he secretly blessed her for her kindness. "Fire away. I've got to know, an' I'd sooner

"Well, then, you say, 'You was'; it should be, 'You were.' You say 'I seen' for 'I saw.' You use the double

"What's the double negative?" he demanded; then added humbly, "You see, I don't even understand your

"I'm afraid I didn't explain that," she smiled. "A double negative is let me see well, you say, 'never helped

nobody.' 'Never' is a negative. 'Nobody' is another negative. It is a rule that two negatives make a positive.

'Never helped nobody' means that, not helping nobody, they must have helped somebody."

"That's pretty clear," he said. "I never thought of it before. But it don't mean they MUST have helped

somebody, does it? Seems to me that 'never helped nobody' just naturally fails to say whether or not they

She was pleased and surprised with the quickness and surety of his mind. As soon as he had got the clew he

"You'll find it all in the grammar," she went on. "There's something else I noticed in your speech. You say

'don't' when you shouldn't. 'Don't' is a contraction and stands for two words. Do you know them?"

"Well " She puckered her brows and pursed up her mouth as she thought, while he looked on and decided

that her expression was most adorable. "'It don't do to be hasty.' Change 'don't' to 'do not,' and it reads, 'It do

"That sounds wrong," he said slowly. "As for the other I can't make up my mind. I guess my ear ain't had the

"And you say 'ben' for 'been,'" she continued; "'come' for 'came'; and the way you chop your endings is

"How do you mean?" He leaned forward, feeling that he ought to get down on his knees before so marvellous

"You don't complete the endings. 'And' spells 'and.' You pronounce it 'an'.' 'Ing' spells 'ing.' Sometimes

you pronounce it 'ing' and sometimes you leave off the 'g.' And then you slur by dropping initial letters and

diphthongs. 'Them' spells 'them.' You pronounce it oh, well, it is not necessary to go over all of them.

As she arose, there shot through his mind something that he had read in the etiquette books, and he stood up

awkwardly, worrying as to whether he was doing the right thing, and fearing that she might take it as a sign

"By the way, Mr. Eden," she called back, as she was leaving the room. "What is BOOZE? You used it several

"Oh, booze," he laughed. "It's slang. It means whiskey an' beer anything that will make you drunk."

"And another thing," she laughed back. "Don't use 'you' when you are impersonal. 'You' is very personal, and

"Why, you said just now, to me, 'whiskey and beer anything that will make you drunk' make me drunk,

"Yes, of course," she smiled. "But it would be nicer not to bring me into it. Substitute 'one' for 'you' and see

When she returned with the grammar, she drew a chair near his he wondered if he should have helped her

with the chair and sat down beside him. She turned the pages of the grammar, and their heads were inclined

toward each other. He could hardly follow her outlining of the work he must do, so amazed was he by her

delightful propinquity. But when she began to lay down the importance of conjugation, he forgot all about

her. He had never heard of conjugation, and was fascinated by the glimpse he was catching into the tieribs

of language. He leaned closer to the page, and her hair touched his cheek. He had fainted but once in his life,

and he thought he was going to faint again. He could scarcely breathe, and his heart was pounding the blood

up into his throat and suffocating him. Never had she seemed so accessible as now. For the moment the great

gulf that separated them was bridged. But there was no diminution in the loftiness of his feeling for her. She

had not descended to him. It was he who had been caught up into the clouds and carried to her. His reverence

for her, in that moment, was of the same order as religious awe and fervor. It seemed to him that he had

intruded upon the holy of holies, and slowly and carefully he moved his head aside from the contact which

Several weeks went by, during which Martin Eden studied his grammar, reviewed the books on etiquette, and

read voraciously the books that caught his fancy. Of his own class he saw nothing. The girls of the Lotus

Club wondered what had become of him and worried Jim with questions, and some of the fellows who put on

the glove at Riley's were glad that Martin came no more. He made another discovery of treasuretrove in the

library. As the grammar had shown him the tieribs of language, so that book showed him the tieribs of

poetry, and he began to learn metre and construction and form, beneath the beauty he loved finding the why

and wherefore of that beauty. Another modern book he found treated poetry as a representative art, treated it

exhaustively, with copious illustrations from the best in literature. Never had he read fiction with so keen zest

as he studied these books. And his fresh mind, untaxed for twenty years and impelled by maturity of desire,

When he looked back now from his vantageground, the old world he had known, the world of land and sea

and ships, of sailormen and harpywomen, seemed a very small world; and yet it blended in with this new

world and expanded. His mind made for unity, and he was surprised when at first he began to see points of

contact between the two worlds. And he was ennobled, as well, by the loftiness of thought and beauty he

found in the books. This led him to believe more firmly than ever that up above him, in society like Ruth and

her family, all men and women thought these thoughts and lived them. Down below where he lived was the

ignoble, and he wanted to purge himself of the ignoble that had soiled all his days, and to rise to that

sublimated realm where dwelt the upper classes. All his childhood and youth had been troubled by a vague

unrest; he had never known what he wanted, but he had wanted something that he had hunted vainly for until

he met Ruth. And now his unrest had become sharp and painful, and he knew at last, clearly and definitely,

During those several weeks he saw Ruth half a dozen times, and each time was an added inspiration. She

helped him with his English, corrected his pronunciation, and started him on arithmetic. But their intercourse

was not all devoted to elementary study. He had seen too much of life, and his mind was too matured, to be

wholly content with fractions, cube root, parsing, and analysis; and there were times when their conversation

turned on other themes the last poetry he had read, the latest poet she had studied. And when she read aloud

to him her favorite passages, he ascended to the topmost heaven of delight. Never, in all the women he had

heard speak, had he heard a voice like hers. The least sound of it was a stimulus to his love, and he thrilled

and throbbed with every word she uttered. It was the quality of it, the repose, and the musical modulation

the soft, rich, indefinable product of culture and a gentle soul. As he listened to her, there rang in the ears of

his memory the harsh cries of barbarian women and of hags, and, in lesser degrees of harshness, the strident

voices of working women and of the girls of his own class. Then the chemistry of vision would begin to

work, and they would troop in review across his mind, each, by contrast, multiplying Ruth's glories. Then,

too, his bliss was heightened by the knowledge that her mind was comprehending what she read and was

quivering with appreciation of the beauty of the written thought. She read to him much from "The Princess,"

and often he saw her eyes swimming with tears, so finely was her aesthetic nature strung. At such moments

her own emotions elevated him till he was as a god, and, as he gazed at her and listened, he seemed gazing on

the face of life and reading its deepest secrets. And then, becoming aware of the heights of exquisite

sensibility he attained, he decided that this was love and that love was the greatest thing in the world. And in

review would pass along the corridors of memory all previous thrills and burnings he had known, the

drunkenness of wine, the caresses of women, the rough play and give and take of physical contests, and

The situation was obscured to Ruth. She had never had any experiences of the heart. Her only experiences in

such matters were of the books, where the facts of ordinary day were translated by fancy into a fairy realm of

unreality; and she little knew that this rough sailor was creeping into her heart and storing there pent forces

that would some day burst forth and surge through her in waves of fire. She did not know the actual fire of

love. Her knowledge of love was purely theoretical, and she conceived of it as lambent flame, gentle as the

fall of dew or the ripple of quiet water, and cool as the velvetdark of summer nights. Her idea of love was

more that of placid affection, serving the loved one softly in an atmosphere, flowerscented and dimlighted,

of ethereal calm. She did not dream of the volcanic convulsions of love, its scorching heat and sterile wastes

of parched ashes. She knew neither her own potencies, nor the potencies of the world; and the deeps of life

were to her seas of illusion. The conjugal affection of her father and mother constituted her ideal of love

affinity, and she looked forward some day to emerging, without shock or friction, into that same quiet

So it was that she looked upon Martin Eden as a novelty, a strange individual, and she identified with novelty

and strangeness the effects he produced upon her. It was only natural. In similar ways she had experienced

unusual feelings when she looked at wild animals in the menagerie, or when she witnessed a storm of wind,

or shuddered at the brightribbed lightning. There was something cosmic in such things, and there was

something cosmic in him. He came to her breathing of large airs and great spaces. The blaze of tropic suns

was in his face, and in his swelling, resilient muscles was the primordial vigor of life. He was marred and

scarred by that mysterious world of rough men and rougher deeds, the outposts of which began beyond her

horizon. He was untamed, wild, and in secret ways her vanity was touched by the fact that he came so mildly

to her hand. Likewise she was stirred by the common impulse to tame the wild thing. It was an unconscious

impulse, and farthest from her thoughts that her desire was to rethumb the clay of him into a likeness of her

father's image, which image she believed to be the finest in the world. Nor was there any way, out of her

inexperience, for her to know that the cosmic feel she caught of him was that most cosmic of things, love,

which with equal power drew men and women together across the world, compelled stags to kill each other in

His swift development was a source of surprise and interest. She detected unguessed finenesses in him that

seemed to bud, day by day, like flowers in congenial soil. She read Browning aloud to him, and was often

puzzled by the strange interpretations he gave to mooted passages. It was beyond her to realize that, out of his

experience of men and women and life, his interpretations were far more frequently correct than hers. His

conceptions seemed naive to her, though she was often fired by his daring flights of comprehension, whose

orbitpath was so wide among the stars that she could not follow and could only sit and thrill to the impact of

unguessed power. Then she played to him no longer at him and probed him with music that sank to

depths beyond her plumbline. His nature opened to music as a flower to the sun, and the transition was

quick from his workingclass ragtime and jingles to her classical display pieces that she knew nearly by

heart. Yet he betrayed a democratic fondness for Wagner, and the "Tannhauser" overture, when she had given

him the clew to it, claimed him as nothing else she played. In an immediate way it personified his life. All his

past was the VENUSBURG motif, while her he identified somehow with the PILGRIM'S CHORUS motif;

and from the exalted state this elevated him to, he swept onward and upward into that vast shadowrealm of

Sometimes he questioned, and induced in her mind temporary doubts as to the correctness of her own

definitions and conceptions of music. But her singing he did not question. It was too wholly her, and he sat

always amazed at the divine melody of her pure soprano voice. And he could not help but contrast it with the

weak pipings and shrill quaverings of factory girls, illnourished and untrained, and with the raucous

shriekings from gincracked throats of the women of the seaport towns. She enjoyed singing and playing to

him. In truth, it was the first time she had ever had a human soul to play with, and the plastic clay of him was

a delight to mould; for she thought she was moulding it, and her intentions were good. Besides, it was

pleasant to be with him. He did not repel her. That first repulsion had been really a fear of her undiscovered

self, and the fear had gone to sleep. Though she did not know it, she had a feeling in him of proprietary right.

Also, he had a tonic effect upon her. She was studying hard at the university, and it seemed to strengthen her

to emerge from the dusty books and have the fresh seabreeze of his personality blow upon her. Strength!

Strength was what she needed, and he gave it to her in generous measure. To come into the same room with

him, or to meet him at the door, was to take heart of life. And when he had gone, she would return to her

She knew her Browning, but it had never sunk into her that it was an awkward thing to play with souls. As

her interest in Martin increased, the remodelling of his life became a passion with her.

"There is Mr. Butler," she said one afternoon, when grammar and arithmetic and poetry had been put aside.

"He had comparatively no advantages at first. His father had been a bank cashier, but he lingered for years,

dying of consumption in Arizona, so that when he was dead, Mr. Butler, Charles Butler he was called, found

himself alone in the world. His father had come from Australia, you know, and so he had no relatives in

California. He went to work in a printingoffice, I have heard him tell of it many times, and he got three

dollars a week, at first. His income today is at least thirty thousand a year. How did he do it? He was honest,

and faithful, and industrious, and economical. He denied himself the enjoyments that most boys indulge in.

He made it a point to save so much every week, no matter what he had to do without in order to save it. Of

course, he was soon earning more than three dollars a week, and as his wages increased he saved more and

"He worked in the daytime, and at night he went to night school. He had his eyes fixed always on the future.

Later on he went to night high school. When he was only seventeen, he was earning excellent wages at

setting type, but he was ambitious. He wanted a career, not a livelihood, and he was content to make

immediate sacrifices for his ultimate again. He decided upon the law, and he entered father's office as an

office boy think of that! and got only four dollars a week. But he had learned how to be economical, and

She paused for breath, and to note how Martin was receiving it. His face was lighted up with interest in the

"I'd say they was pretty hard lines for a young fellow," he remarked. "Four dollars a week! How could he live

on it? You can bet he didn't have any frills. Why, I pay five dollars a week for board now, an' there's nothin'

excitin' about it, you can lay to that. He must have lived like a dog. The food he ate "

"The food he ate must have been worse than what a sailor gets on the worstfeedin' deepwater ships, than

"But think of him now!" she cried enthusiastically. "Think of what his income affords him. His early denials

"There's one thing I'll bet you," he said, "and it is that Mr. Butler is nothin' gayhearted now in his fat days.

He fed himself like that for years an' years, on a boy's stomach, an' I bet his stomach's none too good now for

"An' I bet," Martin dashed on, "that he's solemn an' serious as an old owl, an' doesn't care a rap for a good

time, for all his thirty thousand a year. An' I'll bet he's not particularly joyful at seein' others have a good

"But he is not that type of man. By nature he is sober and serious. He always was that."

"You can bet he was," Martin proclaimed. "Three dollars a week, an' four dollars a week, an' a young boy

cookin' for himself on an oilburner an' layin' up money, workin' all day an' studyin' all night, just workin' an'

never playin', never havin' a good time, an' never learnin' how to have a good time of course his thirty

His sympathetic imagination was flashing upon his inner sight all the thousands of details of the boy's

existence and of his narrow spiritual development into a thirtythousanddollarayear man. With the

swiftness and widereaching of multitudinous thought Charles Butler's whole life was telescoped upon his

"Do you know," he added, "I feel sorry for Mr. Butler. He was too young to know better, but he robbed

himself of life for the sake of thirty thousand a year that's clean wasted upon him. Why, thirty thousand, lump

sum, wouldn't buy for him right now what ten cents he was layin' up would have bought him, when he was a

It was just such uniqueness of points of view that startled Ruth. Not only were they new to her, and contrary

to her own beliefs, but she always felt in them germs of truth that threatened to unseat or modify her own

convictions. Had she been fourteen instead of twentyfour, she might have been changed by them; but she

was twentyfour, conservative by nature and upbringing, and already crystallized into the cranny of life

where she had been born and formed. It was true, his bizarre judgments troubled her in the moments they

were uttered, but she ascribed them to his novelty of type and strangeness of living, and they were soon

forgotten. Nevertheless, while she disapproved of them, the strength of their utterance, and the flashing of

eyes and earnestness of face that accompanied them, always thrilled her and drew her toward him. She would

never have guessed that this man who had come from beyond her horizon, was, in such moments, flashing on

beyond her horizon with wider and deeper concepts. Her own limits were the limits of her horizon; but

limited minds can recognize limitations only in others. And so she felt that her outlook was very wide indeed,

and that where his conflicted with hers marked his limitations; and she dreamed of helping him to see as she

"But I have not finished my story," she said. "He worked, so father says, as no other office boy he ever had.

Mr. Butler was always eager to work. He never was late, and he was usually at the office a few minutes

before his regular time. And yet he saved his time. Every spare moment was devoted to study. He studied

book keeping and typewriting, and he paid for lessons in shorthand by dictating at night to a court reporter

who needed practice. He quickly became a clerk, and he made himself invaluable. Father appreciated him and

saw that he was bound to rise. It was on father's suggestion that he went to law college. He became a lawyer,

and hardly was he back in the office when father took him in as junior partner. He is a great man. He refused

the United States Senate several times, and father says he could become a justice of the Supreme Court any

time a vacancy occurs, if he wants to. Such a life is an inspiration to all of us. It shows us that a man with will

But it seemed to him there was something in the recital that jarred upon his sense of beauty and life. He could

not find an adequate motive in Mr. Butler's life of pinching and privation. Had he done it for love of a

woman, or for attainment of beauty, Martin would have understood. God's own mad lover should do anything

for the kiss, but not for thirty thousand dollars a year. He was dissatisfied with Mr. Butler's career. There was

something paltry about it, after all. Thirty thousand a year was all right, but dyspepsia and inability to be

Much of this he strove to express to Ruth, and shocked her and made it clear that more remodelling was

necessary. Hers was that common insularity of mind that makes human creatures believe that their color,

creed, and politics are best and right and that other human creatures scattered over the world are less

fortunately placed than they. It was the same insularity of mind that made the ancient Jew thank God he was

not born a woman, and sent the modern missionary godsubstituting to the ends of the earth; and it made

Ruth desire to shape this man from other crannies of life into the likeness of the men who lived in her

Back from sea Martin Eden came, homing for California with a lover's desire. His store of money exhausted,

he had shipped before the mast on the treasurehunting schooner; and the Solomon Islands, after eight

months of failure to find treasure, had witnessed the breaking up of the expedition. The men had been paid

off in Australia, and Martin had immediately shipped on a deep water vessel for San Francisco. Not alone

had those eight months earned him enough money to stay on land for many weeks, but they had enabled him

His was the student's mind, and behind his ability to learn was the indomitability of his nature and his love

for Ruth. The grammar he had taken along he went through again and again until his unjaded brain had

mastered it. He noticed the bad grammar used by his shipmates, and made a point of mentally correcting and

reconstructing their crudities of speech. To his great joy he discovered that his ear was becoming sensitive

and that he was developing grammatical nerves. A double negative jarred him like a discord, and often, from

lack of practice, it was from his own lips that the jar came. His tongue refused to learn new tricks in a day.

After he had been through the grammar repeatedly, he took up the dictionary and added twenty words a day

to his vocabulary. He found that this was no light task, and at wheel or lookout he steadily went over and over

his lengthening list of pronunciations and definitions, while he invariably memorized himself to sleep. "Never

did anything," "if I were," and "those things," were phrases, with many variations, that he repeated under his

breath in order to accustom his tongue to the language spoken by Ruth. "And" and "ing," with the "d" and "g"

pronounced emphatically, he went over thousands of times; and to his surprise he noticed that he was

beginning to speak cleaner and more correct English than the officers themselves and the

The captain was a fishyeyed Norwegian who somehow had fallen into possession of a complete

Shakespeare, which he never read, and Martin had washed his clothes for him and in return been permitted

access to the precious volumes. For a time, so steeped was he in the plays and in the many favorite passages

that impressed themselves almost without effort on his brain, that all the world seemed to shape itself into

forms of Elizabethan tragedy or comedy and his very thoughts were in blank verse. It trained his ear and gave

him a fine appreciation for noble English; withal it introduced into his mind much that was archaic and

The eight months had been well spent, and, in addition to what he had learned of right speaking and high

thinking, he had learned much of himself. Along with his humbleness because he knew so little, there arose a

conviction of power. He felt a sharp gradation between himself and his shipmates, and was wise enough to

realize that the difference lay in potentiality rather than achievement. What he could do, they could do; but

within him he felt a confused ferment working that told him there was more in him than he had done. He was

tortured by the exquisite beauty of the world, and wished that Ruth were there to share it with him. He

decided that he would describe to her many of the bits of South Sea beauty. The creative spirit in him flamed

up at the thought and urged that he recreate this beauty for a wider audience than Ruth. And then, in splendor

and glory, came the great idea. He would write. He would be one of the eyes through which the world saw,

one of the ears through which it heard, one of the hearts through which it felt. He would write everything

poetry and prose, fiction and description, and plays like Shakespeare. There was career and the way to win to

Ruth. The men of literature were the world's giants, and he conceived them to be far finer than the Mr.

Butlers who earned thirty thousand a year and could be Supreme Court justices if they wanted to.

Once the idea had germinated, it mastered him, and the return voyage to San Francisco was like a dream. He

was drunken with unguessed power and felt that he could do anything. In the midst of the great and lonely sea

he gained perspective. Clearly, and for the first lime, he saw Ruth and her world. It was all visualized in his

mind as a concrete thing which he could take up in his two hands and turn around and about and examine.

There was much that was dim and nebulous in that world, but he saw it as a whole and not in detail, and he

saw, also, the way to master it. To write! The thought was fire in him. He would begin as soon as he got back.

The first thing he would do would be to describe the voyage of the treasurehunters. He would sell it to some

San Francisco newspaper. He would not tell Ruth anything about it, and she would be surprised and pleased

when she saw his name in print. While he wrote, he could go on studying. There were twentyfour hours in

each day. He was invincible. He knew how to work, and the citadels would go down before him. He would

not have to go to sea again as a sailor; and for the instant he caught a vision of a steam yacht. There were

other writers who possessed steam yachts. Of course, he cautioned himself, it would be slow succeeding at

first, and for a time he would be content to earn enough money by his writing to enable him to go on

studying. And then, after some time, a very indeterminate time, when he had learned and prepared

himself, he would write the great things and his name would be on all men's lips. But greater than that,

infinitely greater and greatest of all, he would have proved himself worthy of Ruth. Fame was all very well,

but it was for Ruth that his splendid dream arose. He was not a famemonger, but merely one of God's mad

Arrived in Oakland, with his snug payday in his pocket, he took up his old room at Bernard Higginbotham's

and set to work. He did not even let Ruth know he was back. He would go and see her when he finished the

article on the treasurehunters. It was not so difficult to abstain from seeing her, because of the violent heat

of creative fever that burned in him. Besides, the very article he was writing would bring her nearer to him.

He did not know how long an article he should write, but he counted the words in a doublepage article in the

Sunday supplement of the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, and guided himself by that. Three days, at white

heat, completed his narrative; but when he had copied it carefully, in a large scrawl that was easy to read, he

learned from a rhetoric he picked up in the library that there were such things as paragraphs and quotation

marks. He had never thought of such things before; and he promptly set to work writing the article over,

referring continually to the pages of the rhetoric and learning more in a day about composition than the

average schoolboy in a year. When he had copied the article a second time and rolled it up carefully, he read

in a newspaper an item on hints to beginners, and discovered the iron law that manuscripts should never be

rolled and that they should be written on one side of the paper. He had violated the law on both counts. Also,

he learned from the item that first class papers paid a minimum of ten dollars a column. So, while he copied

the manuscript a third time, he consoled himself by multiplying ten columns by ten dollars. The product was

always the same, one hundred dollars, and he decided that that was better than seafaring. If it hadn't been for

his blunders, he would have finished the article in three days. One hundred dollars in three days! It would

have taken him three months and longer on the sea to earn a similar amount. A man was a fool to go to sea

when he could write, he concluded, though the money in itself meant nothing to him. Its value was in the

liberty it would get him, the presentable garments it would buy him, all of which would bring him nearer,

swiftly nearer, to the slender, pale girl who had turned his life back upon itself and given him inspiration.

He mailed the manuscript in a flat envelope, and addressed it to the editor of the SAN FRANCISCO

EXAMINER. He had an idea that anything accepted by a paper was published immediately, and as he had

sent the manuscript in on Friday he expected it to come out on the following Sunday. He conceived that it

would be fine to let that event apprise Ruth of his return. Then, Sunday afternoon, he would call and see her.

In the meantime he was occupied by another idea, which he prided himself upon as being a particularly sane,

careful, and modest idea. He would write an adventure story for boys and sell it to THE YOUTH'S

COMPANION. He went to the free readingroom and looked through the files of THE YOUTH'S

COMPANION. Serial stories, he found, were usually published in that weekly in five instalments of about

three thousand words each. He discovered several serials that ran to seven instalments, and decided to write

He had been on a whaling voyage in the Arctic, once a voyage that was to have been for three years and

which had terminated in shipwreck at the end of six months. While his imagination was fanciful, even

fantastic at times, he had a basic love of reality that compelled him to write about the things he knew. He

knew whaling, and out of the real materials of his knowledge he proceeded to manufacture the fictitious

adventures of the two boys he intended to use as joint heroes. It was easy work, he decided on Saturday

evening. He had completed on that day the first instalment of three thousand words much to the amusement

of Jim, and to the open derision of Mr. Higginbotham, who sneered throughout mealtime at the "litery"

Martin contented himself by picturing his brotherinlaw's surprise on Sunday morning when he opened his

EXAMINER and saw the article on the treasurehunters. Early that morning he was out himself to the front

door, nervously racing through the manysheeted newspaper. He went through it a second time, very

carefully, then folded it up and left it where he had found it. He was glad he had not told any one about his

article. On second thought he concluded that he had been wrong about the speed with which things found

their way into newspaper columns. Besides, there had not been any news value in his article, and most likely

After breakfast he went on with his serial. The words flowed from his pen, though he broke off from the

writing frequently to look up definitions in the dictionary or to refer to the rhetoric. He often read or reread

a chapter at a time, during such pauses; and he consoled himself that while he was not writing the great things

he felt to be in him, he was learning composition, at any rate, and training himself to shape up and express his

thoughts. He toiled on till dark, when he went out to the readingroom and explored magazines and weeklies

until the place closed at ten o'clock. This was his programme for a week. Each day he did three thousand

words, and each evening he puzzled his way through the magazines, taking note of the stories, articles, and

poems that editors saw fit to publish. One thing was certain: What these multitudinous writers did he could

do, and only give him time and he would do what they could not do. He was cheered to read in BOOK

NEWS, in a paragraph on the payment of magazine writers, not that Rudyard Kipling received a dollar per

word, but that the minimum rate paid by firstclass magazines was two cents a word. THE YOUTH'S

COMPANION was certainly first class, and at that rate the three thousand words he had written that day

On Friday night he finished the serial, twentyone thousand words long. At two cents a word, he calculated,

that would bring him four hundred and twenty dollars. Not a bad week's work. It was more money than he

had ever possessed at one time. He did not know how he could spend it all. He had tapped a gold mine.

Where this came from he could always get more. He planned to buy some more clothes, to subscribe to many

magazines, and to buy dozens of reference books that at present he was compelled to go to the library to

consult. And still there was a large portion of the four hundred and twenty dollars unspent. This worried him

until the thought came to him of hiring a servant for Gertrude and of buying a bicycle for Marion.

He mailed the bulky manuscript to THE YOUTH'S COMPANION, and on Saturday afternoon, after having

planned an article on pearl diving, he went to see Ruth. He had telephoned, and she went herself to greet

him at the door. The old familiar blaze of health rushed out from him and struck her like a blow. It seemed to

enter into her body and course through her veins in a liquid glow, and to set her quivering with its imparted

strength. He flushed warmly as he took her hand and looked into her blue eyes, but the fresh bronze of eight

months of sun hid the flush, though it did not protect the neck from the gnawing chafe of the stiff collar. She

noted the red line of it with amusement which quickly vanished as she glanced at his clothes. They really

fitted him, it was his first madetoorder suit, and he seemed slimmer and better modelled. In addition,

his cloth cap had been replaced by a soft hat, which she commanded him to put on and then complimented

him on his appearance. She did not remember when she had felt so happy. This change in him was her

But the most radical change of all, and the one that pleased her most, was the change in his speech. Not only

did he speak more correctly, but he spoke more easily, and there were many new words in his vocabulary.

When he grew excited or enthusiastic, however, he dropped back into the old slurring and the dropping of

final consonants. Also, there was an awkward hesitancy, at times, as he essayed the new words he had

learned. On the other hand, along with his ease of expression, he displayed a lightness and facetiousness of

thought that delighted her. It was his old spirit of humor and badinage that had made him a favorite in his

own class, but which he had hitherto been unable to use in her presence through lack of words and training.

He was just beginning to orientate himself and to feel that he was not wholly an intruder. But he was very

tentative, fastidiously so, letting Ruth set the pace of sprightliness and fancy, keeping up with her but never

He told her of what he had been doing, and of his plan to write for a livelihood and of going on with his

studies. But he was disappointed at her lack of approval. She did not think much of his plan.

"You see," she said frankly, "writing must be a trade, like anything else. Not that I know anything about it, of

course. I only bring common judgment to bear. You couldn't hope to be a blacksmith without spending three

years at learning the trade or is it five years! Now writers are so much better paid than blacksmiths that

"But then, may not I be peculiarly constituted to write?" he queried, secretly exulting at the language he had

used, his swift imagination throwing the whole scene and atmosphere upon a vast screen along with a

thousand other scenes from his life scenes that were rough and raw, gross and bestial.

The whole composite vision was achieved with the speed of light, producing no pause in the conversation,

nor interrupting his calm train of thought. On the screen of his imagination he saw himself and this sweet and

beautiful girl, facing each other and conversing in good English, in a room of books and paintings and tone

and culture, and all illuminated by a bright light of steadfast brilliance; while ranged about and fading away

to the remote edges of the screen were antithetical scenes, each scene a picture, and he the onlooker, free to

look at will upon what he wished. He saw these other scenes through drifting vapors and swirls of sullen fog

dissolving before shafts of red and garish light. He saw cowboys at the bar, drinking fierce whiskey, the air

filled with obscenity and ribald language, and he saw himself with them drinking and cursing with the

wildest, or sitting at table with them, under smoking kerosene lamps, while the chips clicked and clattered

and the cards were dealt around. He saw himself, stripped to the waist, with naked fists, fighting his great

fight with Liverpool Red in the forecastle of the Susquehanna; and he saw the bloody deck of the John

Rogers, that gray morning of attempted mutiny, the mate kicking in deaththroes on the mainhatch, the

revolver in the old man's hand spitting fire and smoke, the men with passion wrenched faces, of brutes

screaming vile blasphemies and falling about him and then he returned to the central scene, calm and clean

in the steadfast light, where Ruth sat and talked with him amid books and paintings; and he saw the grand

piano upon which she would later play to him; and he heard the echoes of his own selected and correct words,

"But no matter how peculiarly constituted a man may be for blacksmithing," she was laughing, "I never heard

"What would you advise?" he asked. "And don't forget that I feel in me this capacity to write I can't explain

"You must get a thorough education," was the answer, "whether or not you ultimately become a writer. This

education is indispensable for whatever career you select, and it must not be slipshod or sketchy. You should

"Why?" She looked at him, prettily puzzled, for she did not quite like the persistence with which he clung to

"Because, without writing there wouldn't be any high school. I must live and buy books and clothes, you

"I'd rather have good health and imagination," he answered. "I can make good on the income, but the other

things have to be made good for " He almost said "you," then amended his sentence to, "have to be made

"Don't say 'make good,'" she cried, sweetly petulant. "It's slang, and it's horrid."

He flushed, and stammered, "That's right, and I only wish you'd correct me every time."

"I I'd like to," she said haltingly. "You have so much in you that is good that I want to see you perfect."

He was clay in her hands immediately, as passionately desirous of being moulded by her as she was desirous

of shaping him into the image of her ideal of man. And when she pointed out the opportuneness of the time,

that the entrance examinations to high school began on the following Monday, he promptly volunteered that

Then she played and sang to him, while he gazed with hungry yearning at her, drinking in her loveliness and

marvelling that there should not be a hundred suitors listening there and longing for her as he listened and

He stopped to dinner that evening, and, much to Ruth's satisfaction, made a favorable impression on her

father. They talked about the sea as a career, a subject which Martin had at his fingerends, and Mr. Morse

remarked afterward that he seemed a very clearheaded young man. In his avoidance of slang and his search

after right words, Martin was compelled to talk slowly, which enabled him to find the best thoughts that were

in him. He was more at ease than that first night at dinner, nearly a year before, and his shyness and modesty

"He is the first man that ever drew passing notice from Ruth," she told her husband. "She has been so

"I mean that she is not to die an old maid if I can help it," was the answer. "If this young Eden can arouse her

"A very good thing," he commented. "But suppose, and we must suppose, sometimes, my dear, suppose

"Impossible," Mrs. Morse laughed. "She is three years older than he, and, besides, it is impossible. Nothing

And so Martin's role was arranged for him, while he, led on by Arthur and Norman, was meditating an

extravagance. They were going out for a ride into the hills Sunday morning on their wheels, which did not

interest Martin until he learned that Ruth, too, rode a wheel and was going along. He did not ride, nor own a

wheel, but if Ruth rode, it was up to him to begin, was his decision; and when he said good night, he stopped

in at a cyclery on his way home and spent forty dollars for a wheel. It was more than a month's hard earned

wages, and it reduced his stock of money amazingly; but when he added the hundred dollars he was to

receive from the EXAMINER to the four hundred and twenty dollars that was the least THE YOUTH'S

COMPANION could pay him, he felt that he had reduced the perplexity the unwonted amount of money had

caused him. Nor did he mind, in the course of learning to ride the wheel home, the fact that he ruined his suit

of clothes. He caught the tailor by telephone that night from Mr. Higginbotham's store and ordered another

suit. Then he carried the wheel up the narrow stairway that clung like a fire escape to the rear wall of the

building, and when he had moved his bed out from the wall, found there was just space enough in the small

Sunday he had intended to devote to studying for the high school examination, but the pearldiving article

lured him away, and he spent the day in the whitehot fever of recreating the beauty and romance that

burned in him. The fact that the EXAMINER of that morning had failed to publish his treasurehunting

article did not dash his spirits. He was at too great a height for that, and having been deaf to a twicerepeated

summons, he went without the heavy Sunday dinner with which Mr. Higginbotham invariably graced his

table. To Mr. Higginbotham such a dinner was advertisement of his worldly achievement and prosperity, and

he honored it by delivering platitudinous sermonettes upon American institutions and the opportunity said

institutions gave to any hardworking man to rise the rise, in his case, which he pointed out unfailingly,

Martin Eden looked with a sigh at his unfinished "Pearldiving" on Monday morning, and took the car down

to Oakland to the high school. And when, days later, he applied for the results of his examinations, he learned

"Your grammar is excellent," Professor Hilton informed him, staring at him through heavy spectacles; "but

you know nothing, positively nothing, in the other branches, and your United States history is abominable

Professor Hilton paused and glared at him, unsympathetic and unimaginative as one of his own testtubes.

He was professor of physics in the high school, possessor of a large family, a meagre salary, and a select fund

"Yes, sir," Martin said humbly, wishing somehow that the man at the desk in the library was in Professor

"And I should advise you to go back to the grammar school for at least two years. Good day."

Martin was not deeply affected by his failure, though he was surprised at Ruth's shocked expression when he

told her Professor Hilton's advice. Her disappointment was so evident that he was sorry he had failed, but

"You see I was right," she said. "You know far more than any of the students entering high school, and yet

you can't pass the examinations. It is because what education you have is fragmentary, sketchy. You need the

discipline of study, such as only skilled teachers can give you. You must be thoroughly grounded. Professor

Hilton is right, and if I were you, I'd go to night school. A year and a half of it might enable you to catch up

that additional six months. Besides, that would leave you your days in which to write, or, if you could not

make your living by your pen, you would have your days in which to work in some position."

But if my days are taken up with work and my nights with school, when am I going to see you? was

"It seems so babyish for me to be going to night school. But I wouldn't mind that if I thought it would pay.

But I don't think it will pay. I can do the work quicker than they can teach me. It would be a loss of time "

he thought of her and his desire to have her "and I can't afford the time. I haven't the time to spare, in fact."

"There is so much that is necessary." She looked at him gently, and he was a brute to oppose her. "Physics

and chemistry you can't do them without laboratory study; and you'll find algebra and geometry almost

hopeless with instruction. You need the skilled teachers, the specialists in the art of imparting knowledge."

He was silent for a minute, casting about for the least vainglorious way in which to express himself.

"Please don't think I'm bragging," he began. "I don't intend it that way at all. But I have a feeling that I am

what I may call a natural student. I can study by myself. I take to it kindly, like a duck to water. You see

yourself what I did with grammar. And I've learned much of other things you would never dream how

much. And I'm only getting started. Wait till I get " He hesitated and assured himself of the pronunciation

before he said "momentum. I'm getting my first real feel of things now. I'm beginning to size up the situation

"Knowledge seems to me like a chartroom. Whenever I go into the library, I am impressed that way. The

part played by teachers is to teach the student the contents of the chartroom in a systematic way. The

teachers are guides to the chartroom, that's all. It's not something that they have in their own heads. They

don't make it up, don't create it. It's all in the chartroom and they know their way about in it, and it's their

business to show the place to strangers who might else get lost. Now I don't get lost easily. I have the bump

"That's right," he said gratefully, "where I am. But where am I at I mean, where am I? Oh, yes, in the

"Some persons need guides, most persons do; but I think I can get along without them. I've spent a lot of time

in the chartroom now, and I'm on the edge of knowing my way about, what charts I want to refer to, what

coasts I want to explore. And from the way I line it up, I'll explore a whole lot more quickly by myself. The

speed of a fleet, you know, is the speed of the slowest ship, and the speed of the teachers is affected the same

way. They can't go any faster than the ruck of their scholars, and I can set a faster pace for myself than they

But I'd travel faster with you just the same, was what he wanted to blurt out, as he caught a vision of a world

without end of sunlit spaces and starry voids through which he drifted with her, his arm around her, her pale

gold hair blowing about his face. In the same instant he was aware of the pitiful inadequacy of speech. God!

If he could so frame words that she could see what he then saw! And he felt the stir in him, like a throe of

yearning pain, of the desire to paint these visions that flashed unsummoned on the mirror of his mind. Ah,

that was it! He caught at the hem of the secret. It was the very thing that the great writers and masterpoets

did. That was why they were giants. They knew how to express what they thought, and felt, and saw. Dogs

asleep in the sun often whined and barked, but they were unable to tell what they saw that made them whine

and bark. He had often wondered what it was. And that was all he was, a dog asleep in the sun. He saw noble

and beautiful visions, but he could only whine and bark at Ruth. But he would cease sleeping in the sun. He

would stand up, with open eyes, and he would struggle and toil and learn until, with eyes unblinded and

tongue untied, he could share with her his visioned wealth. Other men had discovered the trick of expression,

of making words obedient servitors, and of making combinations of words mean more than the sum of their

separate meanings. He was stirred profoundly by the passing glimpse at the secret, and he was again caught

up in the vision of sunlit spaces and starry voids until it came to him that it was very quiet, and he saw Ruth

"I have had a great visioning," he said, and at the sound of his words in his own ears his heart gave a leap.

Where had those words come from? They had adequately expressed the pause his vision had put in the

conversation. It was a miracle. Never had he so loftily framed a lofty thought. But never had he attempted to

frame lofty thoughts in words. That was it. That explained it. He had never tried. But Swinburne had, and

Tennyson, and Kipling, and all the other poets. His mind flashed on to his "Pearl diving." He had never

dared the big things, the spirit of the beauty that was a fire in him. That article would be a different thing

when he was done with it. He was appalled by the vastness of the beauty that rightfully belonged in it, and

again his mind flashed and dared, and he demanded of himself why he could not chant that beauty in noble

verse as the great poets did. And there was all the mysterious delight and spiritual wonder of his love for

Ruth. Why could he not chant that, too, as the poets did? They had sung of love. So would he. By God!

And in his frightened ears he heard his exclamation echoing. Carried away, he had breathed it aloud. The

blood surged into his face, wave upon wave, mastering the bronze of it till the blush of shame flaunted itself

"It sounded as if you were praying," she said bravely, but she felt herself inside to be withering and shrinking.

It was the first time she had heard an oath from the lips of a man she knew, and she was shocked, not merely

as a matter of principle and training, but shocked in spirit by this rough blast of life in the garden of her

But she forgave, and with surprise at the ease of her forgiveness. Somehow it was not so difficult to forgive

him anything. He had not had a chance to be as other men, and he was trying so hard, and succeeding, too. It

never entered her head that there could be any other reason for her being kindly disposed toward him. She

was tenderly disposed toward him, but she did not know it. She had no way of knowing it. The placid poise

of twentyfour years without a single love affair did not fit her with a keen perception of her own feelings,

and she who had never warmed to actual love was unaware that she was warming now.

Martin went back to his pearldiving article, which would have been finished sooner if it had not been

broken in upon so frequently by his attempts to write poetry. His poems were love poems, inspired by Ruth,

but they were never completed. Not in a day could he learn to chant in noble verse. Rhyme and metre and

structure were serious enough in themselves, but there was, over and beyond them, an intangible and evasive

something that he caught in all great poetry, but which he could not catch and imprison in his own. It was the

elusive spirit of poetry itself that he sensed and sought after but could not capture. It seemed a glow to him, a

warm and trailing vapor, ever beyond his reaching, though sometimes he was rewarded by catching at shreds

of it and weaving them into phrases that echoed in his brain with haunting notes or drifted across his vision in

misty wafture of unseen beauty. It was baffling. He ached with desire to express and could but gibber

prosaically as everybody gibbered. He read his fragments aloud. The metre marched along on perfect feet,

and the rhyme pounded a longer and equally faultless rhythm, but the glow and high exaltation that he felt

within were lacking. He could not understand, and time and again, in despair, defeated and depressed, he

Following the "Pearldiving," he wrote an article on the sea as a career, another on turtlecatching, and a

third on the northeast trades. Then he tried, as an experiment, a short story, and before he broke his stride he

had finished six short stories and despatched them to various magazines. He wrote prolifically, intensely,

from morning till night, and late at night, except when he broke off to go to the readingroom, draw books

from the library, or to call on Ruth. He was profoundly happy. Life was pitched high. He was in a fever that

never broke. The joy of creation that is supposed to belong to the gods was his. All the life about him the

odors of stale vegetables and soapsuds, the slatternly form of his sister, and the jeering face of Mr.

Higginbotham was a dream. The real world was in his mind, and the stories he wrote were so many pieces

The days were too short. There was so much he wanted to study. He cut his sleep down to five hours and

found that he could get along upon it. He tried four hours and a half, and regretfully came back to five. He

could joyfully have spent all his waking hours upon any one of his pursuits. It was with regret that he ceased

from writing to study, that he ceased from study to go to the library, that he tore himself away from that

chartroom of knowledge or from the magazines in the readingroom that were filled with the secrets of

writers who succeeded in selling their wares. It was like severing heart strings, when he was with Ruth, to

stand up and go; and he scorched through the dark streets so as to get home to his books at the least possible

expense of time. And hardest of all was it to shut up the algebra or physics, put notebook and pencil aside,

and close his tired eyes in sleep. He hated the thought of ceasing to live, even for so short a time, and his sole

consolation was that the alarm clock was set five hours ahead. He would lose only five hours anyway, and

then the jangling bell would jerk him out of unconsciousness and he would have before him another glorious

In the meantime the weeks were passing, his money was ebbing low, and there was no money coming in. A

month after he had mailed it, the adventure serial for boys was returned to him by THE YOUTH'S

COMPANION. The rejection slip was so tactfully worded that he felt kindly toward the editor. But he did not

feel so kindly toward the editor of the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER. After waiting two whole weeks,

Martin had written to him. A week later he wrote again. At the end of the month, he went over to San

Francisco and personally called upon the editor. But he did not meet that exalted personage, thanks to a

Cerberus of an office boy, of tender years and red hair, who guarded the portals. At the end of the fifth week

the manuscript came back to him, by mail, without comment. There was no rejection slip, no explanation,

nothing. In the same way his other articles were tied up with the other leading San Francisco papers. When he

recovered them, he sent them to the magazines in the East, from which they were returned more promptly,

The short stories were returned in similar fashion. He read them over and over, and liked them so much that

he could not puzzle out the cause of their rejection, until, one day, he read in a newspaper that manuscripts

should always be typewritten. That explained it. Of course editors were so busy that they could not afford the

time and strain of reading handwriting. Martin rented a typewriter and spent a day mastering the machine.

Each day he typed what he composed, and he typed his earlier manuscripts as fast as they were returned him.

He was surprised when the typed ones began to come back. His jaw seemed to become squarer, his chin more

The thought came to him that he was not a good judge of his own work. He tried it out on Gertrude. He read

his stories aloud to her. Her eyes glistened, and she looked at him proudly as she said:

"Just grand," was the reply. "Just grand, an' thrilling, too. I was all worked up."

He could see that her mind was not clear. The perplexity was strong in her goodnatured face. So he waited.

"But, say, Mart," after a long pause, "how did it end? Did that young man who spoke so highfalutin' get her?"

And, after he had explained the end, which he thought he had made artistically obvious, she would say:

One thing he learned, after he had read her a number of stories, namely, that she liked happy endings.

"That story was perfectly grand," she announced, straightening up from the washtub with a tired sigh and

wiping the sweat from her forehead with a red, steamy hand; "but it makes me sad. I want to cry. There is too

many sad things in the world anyway. It makes me happy to think about happy things. Now if he'd married

her, and You don't mind, Mart?" she queried apprehensively. "I just happen to feel that way, because I'm

tired, I guess. But the story was grand just the same, perfectly grand. Where are you goin' to sell it?"

"Easy money, eh?" Then he added proudly: "I wrote it in two days. That's fifty dollars a day."

He longed to read his stories to Ruth, but did not dare. He would wait till some were published, he decided,

then she would understand what he had been working for. In the meantime he toiled on. Never had the spirit

of adventure lured him more strongly than on this amazing exploration of the realm of mind. He bought the

textbooks on physics and chemistry, and, along with his algebra, worked out problems and demonstrations.

He took the laboratory proofs on faith, and his intense power of vision enabled him to see the reactions of

chemicals more understandingly than the average student saw them in the laboratory. Martin wandered on

through the heavy pages, overwhelmed by the clews he was getting to the nature of things. He had accepted

the world as the world, but now he was comprehending the organization of it, the play and interplay of force

and matter. Spontaneous explanations of old matters were continually arising in his mind. Levers and

purchases fascinated him, and his mind roved backward to handspikes and blocks and tackles at sea. The

theory of navigation, which enabled the ships to travel unerringly their courses over the pathless ocean, was

made clear to him. The mysteries of storm, and rain, and tide were revealed, and the reason for the existence

of tradewinds made him wonder whether he had written his article on the northeast trade too soon. At any

rate he knew he could write it better now. One afternoon he went out with Arthur to the University of

California, and, with bated breath and a feeling of religious awe, went through the laboratories, saw

But he did not neglect his writing. A stream of short stories flowed from his pen, and he branched out into the

easier forms of verse the kind he saw printed in the magazines though he lost his head and wasted two

weeks on a tragedy in blank verse, the swift rejection of which, by half a dozen magazines, dumfounded him.

Then he discovered Henley and wrote a series of seapoems on the model of "Hospital Sketches." They were

simple poems, of light and color, and romance and adventure. "Sea Lyrics," he called them, and he judged

them to be the best work he had yet done. There were thirty, and he completed them in a month, doing one a

day after having done his regular day's work on fiction, which day's work was the equivalent to a week's

work of the average successful writer. The toil meant nothing to him. It was not toil. He was finding speech,

and all the beauty and wonder that had been pent for years behind his inarticulate lips was now pouring forth

He showed the "Sea Lyrics" to no one, not even to the editors. He had become distrustful of editors. But it

was not distrust that prevented him from submitting the "Lyrics." They were so beautiful to him that he was

impelled to save them to share with Ruth in some glorious, faroff time when he would dare to read to her

what he had written. Against that time he kept them with him, reading them aloud, going over them until he

He lived every moment of his waking hours, and he lived in his sleep, his subjective mind rioting through his

five hours of surcease and combining the thoughts and events of the day into grotesque and impossible

marvels. In reality, he never rested, and a weaker body or a less firmly poised brain would have been

prostrated in a general breakdown. His late afternoon calls on Ruth were rarer now, for June was

approaching, when she would take her degree and finish with the university. Bachelor of Arts! when he

thought of her degree, it seemed she fled beyond him faster than he could pursue.

One afternoon a week she gave to him, and arriving late, he usually stayed for dinner and for music

afterward. Those were his red letter days. The atmosphere of the house, in such contrast with that in which

he lived, and the mere nearness to her, sent him forth each time with a firmer grip on his resolve to climb the

heights. In spite of the beauty in him, and the aching desire to create, it was for her that he struggled. He was

Greater than his adventure in the world of thought was his love adventure. The world itself was not so

amazing because of the atoms and molecules that composed it according to the propulsions of irresistible

force; what made it amazing was the fact that Ruth lived in it. She was the most amazing thing he had ever

But he was oppressed always by her remoteness. She was so far from him, and he did not know how to

approach her. He had been a success with girls and women in his own class; but he had never loved any of

them, while he did love her, and besides, she was not merely of another class. His very love elevated her

above all classes. She was a being apart, so far apart that he did not know how to draw near to her as a lover

should draw near. It was true, as he acquired knowledge and language, that he was drawing nearer, talking

her speech, discovering ideas and delights in common; but this did not satisfy his lover's yearning. His lover's

imagination had made her holy, too holy, too spiritualized, to have any kinship with him in the flesh. It was

his own love that thrust her from him and made her seem impossible for him. Love itself denied him the one

And then, one day, without warning, the gulf between them was bridged for a moment, and thereafter, though

the gulf remained, it was ever narrower. They had been eating cherries great, luscious, black cherries with a

juice of the color of dark wine. And later, as she read aloud to him from "The Princess," he chanced to notice

the stain of the cherries on her lips. For the moment her divinity was shattered. She was clay, after all, mere

clay, subject to the common law of clay as his clay was subject, or anybody's clay. Her lips were flesh like

his, and cherries dyed them as cherries dyed his. And if so with her lips, then was it so with all of her. She

was woman, all woman, just like any woman. It came upon him abruptly. It was a revelation that stunned

him. It was as if he had seen the sun fall out of the sky, or had seen worshipped purity polluted.

Then he realized the significance of it, and his heart began pounding and challenging him to play the lover

with this woman who was not a spirit from other worlds but a mere woman with lips a cherry could stain. He

trembled at the audacity of his thought; but all his soul was singing, and reason, in a triumphant paean,

assured him he was right. Something of this change in him must have reached her, for she paused from her

reading, looked up at him, and smiled. His eyes dropped from her blue eyes to her lips, and the sight of the

stain maddened him. His arms all but flashed out to her and around her, in the way of his old careless life.

She seemed to lean toward him, to wait, and all his will fought to hold him back.

Then she laughed at him, delighting in his confusion, and as he looked into her frank eyes and knew that she

had divined nothing of what he felt, he became abashed. He had indeed in thought dared too far. Of all the

women he had known there was no woman who would not have guessed save her. And she had not

guessed. There was the difference. She was different. He was appalled by his own grossness, awed by her

clear innocence, and he gazed again at her across the gulf. The bridge had broken down.

But still the incident had brought him nearer. The memory of it persisted, and in the moments when he was

most cast down, he dwelt upon it eagerly. The gulf was never again so wide. He had accomplished a distance

vastly greater than a bachelorship of arts, or a dozen bachelorships. She was pure, it was true, as he had never

dreamed of purity; but cherries stained her lips. She was subject to the laws of the universe just as inexorably

as he was. She had to eat to live, and when she got her feet wet, she caught cold. But that was not the point. If

she could feel hunger and thirst, and heat and cold, then could she feel love and love for a man. Well, he

was a man. And why could he not be the man? "It's up to me to make good," he would murmur fervently. "I

Early one evening, struggling with a sonnet that twisted all awry the beauty and thought that trailed in glow

"It's a lady's voice, a fine lady's," Mr. Higginbotham, who had called him, jeered.

Martin went to the telephone in the corner of the room, and felt a wave of warmth rush through him as he

heard Ruth's voice. In his battle with the sonnet he had forgotten her existence, and at the sound of her voice

his love for her smote him like a sudden blow. And such a voice! delicate and sweet, like a strain of music

heard far off and faint, or, better, like a bell of silver, a perfect tone, crystalpure. No mere woman had a

voice like that. There was something celestial about it, and it came from other worlds. He could scarcely hear

what it said, so ravished was he, though he controlled his face, for he knew that Mr. Higginbotham's ferret

It was not much that Ruth wanted to say merely that Norman had been going to take her to a lecture that

night, but that he had a headache, and she was so disappointed, and she had the tickets, and that if he had no

Would he! He fought to suppress the eagerness in his voice. It was amazing. He had always seen her in her

own house. And he had never dared to ask her to go anywhere with him. Quite irrelevantly, still at the

telephone and talking with her, he felt an overpowering desire to die for her, and visions of heroic sacrifice

shaped and dissolved in his whirling brain. He loved her so much, so terribly, so hopelessly. In that moment

of mad happiness that she should go out with him, go to a lecture with him with him, Martin Eden she

soared so far above him that there seemed nothing else for him to do than die for her. It was the only fit way

in which he could express the tremendous and lofty emotion he felt for her. It was the sublime abnegation of

true love that comes to all lovers, and it came to him there, at the telephone, in a whirlwind of fire and glory;

and to die for her, he felt, was to have lived and loved well. And he was only twenty one, and he had never

His hand trembled as he hung up the receiver, and he was weak from the organ which had stirred him. His

eyes were shining like an angel's, and his face was transfigured, purged of all earthly dross, and pure and

"Makin' dates outside, eh?" his brotherinlaw sneered. "You know what that means. You'll be in the police

But Martin could not come down from the height. Not even the bestiality of the allusion could bring him back

to earth. Anger and hurt were beneath him. He had seen a great vision and was as a god, and he could feel

only profound and awful pity for this maggot of a man. He did not look at him, and though his eyes passed

over him, he did not see him; and as in a dream he passed out of the room to dress. It was not until he had

reached his own room and was tying his necktie that he became aware of a sound that lingered unpleasantly

in his ears. On investigating this sound he identified it as the final snort of Bernard Higginbotham, which

As Ruth's front door closed behind them and he came down the steps with her, he found himself greatly

perturbed. It was not unalloyed bliss, taking her to the lecture. He did not know what he ought to do. He had

seen, on the streets, with persons of her class, that the women took the men's arms. But then, again, he had

seen them when they didn't; and he wondered if it was only in the evening that arms were taken, or only

Just before he reached the sidewalk, he remembered Minnie. Minnie had always been a stickler. She had

called him down the second time she walked out with him, because he had gone along on the inside, and she

had laid the law down to him that a gentleman always walked on the outside when he was with a lady. And

Minnie had made a practice of kicking his heels, whenever they crossed from one side of the street to the

other, to remind him to get over on the outside. He wondered where she had got that item of etiquette, and

It wouldn't do any harm to try it, he decided, by the time they had reached the sidewalk; and he swung behind

Ruth and took up his station on the outside. Then the other problem presented itself. Should he offer her his

arm? He had never offered anybody his arm in his life. The girls he had known never took the fellows' arms.

For the first several times they walked freely, side by side, and after that it was arms around the waists, and

heads against the fellows' shoulders where the streets were unlighted. But this was different. She wasn't that

He crooked the arm next to her crooked it very slightly and with secret tentativeness, not invitingly, but just

casually, as though he was accustomed to walk that way. And then the wonderful thing happened. He felt her

hand upon his arm. Delicious thrills ran through him at the contact, and for a few sweet moments it seemed

that he had left the solid earth and was flying with her through the air. But he was soon back again, perturbed

by a new complication. They were crossing the street. This would put him on the inside. He should be on the

outside. Should he therefore drop her arm and change over? And if he did so, would he have to repeat the

manoeuvre the next time? And the next? There was something wrong about it, and he resolved not to caper

about and play the fool. Yet he was not satisfied with his conclusion, and when he found himself on the

inside, he talked quickly and earnestly, making a show of being carried away by what he was saying, so that,

in case he was wrong in not changing sides, his enthusiasm would seem the cause for his carelessness.

As they crossed Broadway, he came face to face with a new problem. In the blaze of the electric lights, he

saw Lizzie Connolly and her giggly friend. Only for an instant he hesitated, then his hand went up and his hat

came off. He could not be disloyal to his kind, and it was to more than Lizzie Connolly that his hat was lifted.

She nodded and looked at him boldly, not with soft and gentle eyes like Ruth's, but with eyes that were

handsome and hard, and that swept on past him to Ruth and itemized her face and dress and station. And he

was aware that Ruth looked, too, with quick eyes that were timid and mild as a dove's, but which saw, in a

look that was a flutter on and past, the workingclass girl in her cheap finery and under the strange hat that

"I don't know. I guess it's all a matter of personal taste, but she doesn't strike me as being particularly pretty."

"Why, there isn't one woman in ten thousand with features as regular as hers. They are splendid. Her face is

"Do you think so?" Martin queried absently, for to him there was only one beautiful woman in the world, and

"Do I think so? If that girl had proper opportunity to dress, Mr. Eden, and if she were taught how to carry

"She would have to be taught how to speak," he commented, "or else most of the men wouldn't understand

her. I'm sure you couldn't understand a quarter of what she said if she just spoke naturally."

"You forget how I talked when you first met me. I have learned a new language since then. Before that time I

talked as that girl talks. Now I can manage to make myself understood sufficiently in your language to

explain that you do not know that other girl's language. And do you know why she carries herself the way she

does? I think about such things now, though I never used to think about them, and I am beginning to

"She has worked long hours for years at machines. When one's body is young, it is very pliable, and hard

work will mould it like putty according to the nature of the work. I can tell at a glance the trades of many

workingmen I meet on the street. Look at me. Why am I rolling all about the shop? Because of the years I put

in on the sea. If I'd put in the same years cowpunching, with my body young and pliable, I wouldn't be

rolling now, but I'd be bow legged. And so with that girl. You noticed that her eyes were what I might call

hard. She has never been sheltered. She has had to take care of herself, and a young girl can't take care of

"I think you are right," Ruth said in a low voice. "And it is too bad. She is such a pretty girl."

He looked at her and saw her eyes luminous with pity. And then he remembered that he loved her and was

lost in amazement at his fortune that permitted him to love her and to take her on his arm to a lecture.

Who are you, Martin Eden? he demanded of himself in the looking glass, that night when he got back to his

room. He gazed at himself long and curiously. Who are you? What are you? Where do you belong? You

belong by rights to girls like Lizzie Connolly. You belong with the legions of toil, with all that is low, and

vulgar, and unbeautiful. You belong with the oxen and the drudges, in dirty surroundings among smells and

stenches. There are the stale vegetables now. Those potatoes are rotting. Smell them, damn you, smell them.

And yet you dare to open the books, to listen to beautiful music, to learn to love beautiful paintings, to speak

good English, to think thoughts that none of your own kind thinks, to tear yourself away from the oxen and

the Lizzie Connollys and to love a pale spirit of a woman who is a million miles beyond you and who lives in

the stars! Who are you? and what are you? damn you! And are you going to make good?

He shook his fist at himself in the glass, and sat down on the edge of the bed to dream for a space with wide

eyes. Then he got out notebook and algebra and lost himself in quadratic equations, while the hours slipped

It was the knot of wordy socialists and workingclass philosophers that held forth in the City Hall Park on

warm afternoons that was responsible for the great discovery. Once or twice in the month, while riding

through the park on his way to the library, Martin dismounted from his wheel and listened to the arguments,

and each time he tore himself away reluctantly. The tone of discussion was much lower than at Mr. Morse's

table. The men were not grave and dignified. They lost their tempers easily and called one another names,

while oaths and obscene allusions were frequent on their lips. Once or twice he had seen them come to blows.

And yet, he knew not why, there seemed something vital about the stuff of these men's thoughts. Their

logomachy was far more stimulating to his intellect than the reserved and quiet dogmatism of Mr. Morse.

These men, who slaughtered English, gesticulated like lunatics, and fought one another's ideas with primitive

anger, seemed somehow to be more alive than Mr. Morse and his crony, Mr. Butler.

Martin had heard Herbert Spencer quoted several times in the park, but one afternoon a disciple of Spencer's

appeared, a seedy tramp with a dirty coat buttoned tightly at the throat to conceal the absence of a shirt. Battle

royal was waged, amid the smoking of many cigarettes and the expectoration of much tobaccojuice,

wherein the tramp successfully held his own, even when a socialist workman sneered, "There is no god but

the Unknowable, and Herbert Spencer is his prophet." Martin was puzzled as to what the discussion was

about, but when he rode on to the library he carried with him a newborn interest in Herbert Spencer, and

because of the frequency with which the tramp had mentioned "First Principles," Martin drew out that

So the great discovery began. Once before he had tried Spencer, and choosing the "Principles of Psychology"

to begin with, he had failed as abjectly as he had failed with Madam Blavatsky. There had been no

understanding the book, and he had returned it unread. But this night, after algebra and physics, and an

attempt at a sonnet, he got into bed and opened "First Principles." Morning found him still reading. It was

impossible for him to sleep. Nor did he write that day. He lay on the bed till his body grew tired, when he

tried the hard floor, reading on his back, the book held in the air above him, or changing from side to side. He

slept that night, and did his writing next morning, and then the book tempted him and he fell, reading all

afternoon, oblivious to everything and oblivious to the fact that that was the afternoon Ruth gave to him. His

first consciousness of the immediate world about him was when Bernard Higginbotham jerked open the door

Martin Eden had been mastered by curiosity all his days. He wanted to know, and it was this desire that had

sent him adventuring over the world. But he was now learning from Spencer that he never had known, and

that he never could have known had he continued his sailing and wandering forever. He had merely skimmed

over the surface of things, observing detached phenomena, accumulating fragments of facts, making

superficial little generalizations and all and everything quite unrelated in a capricious and disorderly world

of whim and chance. The mechanism of the flight of birds he had watched and reasoned about with

understanding; but it had never entered his head to try to explain the process whereby birds, as organic flying

mechanisms, had been developed. He had never dreamed there was such a process. That birds should have

And as it was with birds, so had it been with everything. His ignorant and unprepared attempts at philosophy

had been fruitless. The medieval metaphysics of Kant had given him the key to nothing, and had served the

sole purpose of making him doubt his own intellectual powers. In similar manner his attempt to study

evolution had been confined to a hopelessly technical volume by Romanes. He had understood nothing, and

the only idea he had gathered was that evolution was a dryasdust theory, of a lot of little men possessed of

huge and unintelligible vocabularies. And now he learned that evolution was no mere theory but an accepted

process of development; that scientists no longer disagreed about it, their only differences being over the

And here was the man Spencer, organizing all knowledge for him, reducing everything to unity, elaborating

ultimate realities, and presenting to his startled gaze a universe so concrete of realization that it was like the

model of a ship such as sailors make and put into glass bottles. There was no caprice, no chance. All was law.

It was in obedience to law that the bird flew, and it was in obedience to the same law that fermenting slime

Martin had ascended from pitch to pitch of intellectual living, and here he was at a higher pitch than ever. All

the hidden things were laying their secrets bare. He was drunken with comprehension. At night, asleep, he

lived with the gods in colossal nightmare; and awake, in the day, he went around like a somnambulist, with

absent stare, gazing upon the world he had just discovered. At table he failed to hear the conversation about

petty and ignoble things, his eager mind seeking out and following cause and effect in everything before him.

In the meat on the platter he saw the shining sun and traced its energy back through all its transformations to

its source a hundred million miles away, or traced its energy ahead to the moving muscles in his arms that

enabled him to cut the meat, and to the brain wherewith he willed the muscles to move to cut the meat, until,

with inward gaze, he saw the same sun shining in his brain. He was entranced by illumination, and did not

hear the "Bughouse," whispered by Jim, nor see the anxiety on his sister's face, nor notice the rotary motion

of Bernard Higginbotham's finger, whereby he imparted the suggestion of wheels revolving in his

What, in a way, most profoundly impressed Martin, was the correlation of knowledge of all knowledge. He

had been curious to know things, and whatever he acquired he had filed away in separate memory

compartments in his brain. Thus, on the subject of sailing he had an immense store. On the subject of woman

he had a fairly large store. But these two subjects had been unrelated. Between the two memory

compartments there had been no connection. That, in the fabric of knowledge, there should be any connection

whatever between a woman with hysterics and a schooner carrying a weatherhelm or heaving to in a gale,

would have struck him as ridiculous and impossible. But Herbert Spencer had shown him not only that it was

not ridiculous, but that it was impossible for there to be no connection. All things were related to all other

things from the farthermost star in the wastes of space to the myriads of atoms in the grain of sand under

one's foot. This new concept was a perpetual amazement to Martin, and he found himself engaged continually

in tracing the relationship between all things under the sun and on the other side of the sun. He drew up lists

of the most incongruous things and was unhappy until he succeeded in establishing kinship between them all

kinship between love, poetry, earthquake, fire, rattlesnakes, rainbows, precious gems, monstrosities,

sunsets, the roaring of lions, illuminating gas, cannibalism, beauty, murder, lovers, fulcrums, and tobacco.

Thus, he unified the universe and held it up and looked at it, or wandered through its byways and alleys and

jungles, not as a terrified traveller in the thick of mysteries seeking an unknown goal, but observing and

charting and becoming familiar with all there was to know. And the more he knew, the more passionately he

"You fool!" he cried at his image in the lookingglass. "You wanted to write, and you tried to write, and you

had nothing in you to write about. What did you have in you? some childish notions, a few halfbaked

sentiments, a lot of undigested beauty, a great black mass of ignorance, a heart filled to bursting with love,

and an ambition as big as your love and as futile as your ignorance. And you wanted to write! Why, you're

just on the edge of beginning to get something in you to write about. You wanted to create beauty, but how

could you when you knew nothing about the nature of beauty? You wanted to write about life when you

knew nothing of the essential characteristics of life. You wanted to write about the world and the scheme of

existence when the world was a Chinese puzzle to you and all that you could have written would have been

about what you did not know of the scheme of existence. But cheer up, Martin, my boy. You'll write yet. You

know a little, a very little, and you're on the right road now to know more. Some day, if you're lucky, you

He brought his great discovery to Ruth, sharing with her all his joy and wonder in it. But she did not seem to

be so enthusiastic over it. She tacitly accepted it and, in a way, seemed aware of it from her own studies. It

did not stir her deeply, as it did him, and he would have been surprised had he not reasoned it out that it was

not new and fresh to her as it was to him. Arthur and Norman, he found, believed in evolution and had read

Spencer, though it did not seem to have made any vital impression upon them, while the young fellow with

the glasses and the mop of hair, Will Olney, sneered disagreeably at Spencer and repeated the epigram,

But Martin forgave him the sneer, for he had begun to discover that Olney was not in love with Ruth. Later,

he was dumfounded to learn from various little happenings not only that Olney did not care for Ruth, but that

he had a positive dislike for her. Martin could not understand this. It was a bit of phenomena that he could not

correlate with all the rest of the phenomena in the universe. But nevertheless he felt sorry for the young

fellow because of the great lack in his nature that prevented him from a proper appreciation of Ruth's fineness

and beauty. They rode out into the hills several Sundays on their wheels, and Martin had ample opportunity

to observe the armed truce that existed between Ruth and Olney. The latter chummed with Norman, throwing

Those Sundays were great days for Martin, greatest because he was with Ruth, and great, also, because they

were putting him more on a par with the young men of her class. In spite of their long years of disciplined

education, he was finding himself their intellectual equal, and the hours spent with them in conversation was

so much practice for him in the use of the grammar he had studied so hard. He had abandoned the etiquette

books, falling back upon observation to show him the right things to do. Except when carried away by his

enthusiasm, he was always on guard, keenly watchful of their actions and learning their little courtesies and

The fact that Spencer was very little read was for some time a source of surprise to Martin. "Herbert

Spencer," said the man at the desk in the library, "oh, yes, a great mind." But the man did not seem to know

anything of the content of that great mind. One evening, at dinner, when Mr. Butler was there, Martin turned

the conversation upon Spencer. Mr. Morse bitterly arraigned the English philosopher's agnosticism, but

confessed that he had not read "First Principles"; while Mr. Butler stated that he had no patience with

Spencer, had never read a line of him, and had managed to get along quite well without him. Doubts arose in

Martin's mind, and had he been less strongly individual he would have accepted the general opinion and

given Herbert Spencer up. As it was, he found Spencer's explanation of things convincing; and, as he phrased

it to himself, to give up Spencer would be equivalent to a navigator throwing the compass and chronometer

overboard. So Martin went on into a thorough study of evolution, mastering more and more the subject

himself, and being convinced by the corroborative testimony of a thousand independent writers. The more he

studied, the more vistas he caught of fields of knowledge yet unexplored, and the regret that days were only

One day, because the days were so short, he decided to give up algebra and geometry. Trigonometry he had

not even attempted. Then he cut chemistry from his studylist, retaining only physics.

"I am not a specialist," he said, in defence, to Ruth. "Nor am I going to try to be a specialist. There are too

many special fields for any one man, in a whole lifetime, to master a tithe of them. I must pursue general

"But it is unnecessary to have it. We profit from the work of the specialists. That's what they are for. When I

came in, I noticed the chimneysweeps at work. They're specialists, and when they get done, you will enjoy

She looked at him curiously, and he felt a reproach in her gaze and manner. But he was convinced of the

"All thinkers on general subjects, the greatest minds in the world, in fact, rely on the specialists. Herbert

Spencer did that. He generalized upon the findings of thousands of investigators. He would have had to live a

thousand lives in order to do it all himself. And so with Darwin. He took advantage of all that had been

"You're right, Martin," Olney said. "You know what you're after, and Ruth doesn't. She doesn't know what

" Oh, yes," Olney rushed on, heading off her objection, "I know you call it general culture. But it doesn't

matter what you study if you want general culture. You can study French, or you can study German, or cut

them both out and study Esperanto, you'll get the culture tone just the same. You can study Greek or Latin,

too, for the same purpose, though it will never be any use to you. It will be culture, though. Why, Ruth

studied Saxon, became clever in it, that was two years ago, and all that she remembers of it now is 'Whan

"But it's given you the culture tone just the same," he laughed, again heading her off. "I know. We were in the

"But you speak of culture as if it should be a means to something," Ruth cried out. Her eyes were flashing,

"Yes, of course, I want culture," Martin faltered. "I love beauty, and culture will give me a finer and keener

"Rot, and you know it," was Olney's comment. "Martin's after career, not culture. It just happens that culture,

in his case, is incidental to career. If he wanted to be a chemist, culture would be unnecessary. Martin wants

"And why does Martin want to write?" he went on. "Because he isn't rolling in wealth. Why do you fill your

head with Saxon and general culture? Because you don't have to make your way in the world. Your father

sees to that. He buys your clothes for you, and all the rest. What rotten good is our education, yours and mine

and Arthur's and Norman's? We're soaked in general culture, and if our daddies went broke today, we'd be

falling down to morrow on teachers' examinations. The best job you could get, Ruth, would be a country

"Not a blessed thing. I could earn a dollar and a half a day, common labor, and I might get in as instructor in

Hanley's cramming joint I say might, mind you, and I might be chucked out at the end of the week for sheer

Martin followed the discussion closely, and while he was convinced that Olney was right, he resented the

rather cavalier treatment he accorded Ruth. A new conception of love formed in his mind as he listened.

Reason had nothing to do with love. It mattered not whether the woman he loved reasoned correctly or

incorrectly. Love was above reason. If it just happened that she did not fully appreciate his necessity for a

career, that did not make her a bit less lovable. She was all lovable, and what she thought had nothing to do

"What's that?" he replied to a question from Olney that broke in upon his train of thought.

Martin was sore beset. He could see that Ruth was hanging eagerly upon his answer.

"I am afraid I won't have time," he said finally. "I'd like to, but I won't have time."

"You see, Martin's not seeking culture," Olney exulted. "He's trying to get somewhere, to do something."

"Oh, but it's mental training. It's mind discipline. It's what makes disciplined minds." Ruth looked expectantly

at Martin, as if waiting for him to change his judgment. "You know, the football players have to train before

"Rot and bosh! That's what they told us when we were kids. But there is one thing they didn't tell us then.

They let us find it out for ourselves afterwards." Olney paused for effect, then added, "And what they didn't

tell us was that every gentleman should have studied Latin, but that no gentleman should know Latin."

"Now that's unfair," Ruth cried. "I knew you were turning the conversation just in order to get off

"It's clever all right," was the retort, "but it's fair, too. The only men who know their Latin are the

apothecaries, the lawyers, and the Latin professors. And if Martin wants to be one of them, I miss my guess.

But what's all that got to do with Herbert Spencer anyway? Martin's just discovered Spencer, and he's wild

over him. Why? Because Spencer is taking him somewhere. Spencer couldn't take me anywhere, nor you. We

haven't got anywhere to go. You'll get married some day, and I'll have nothing to do but keep track of the

lawyers and business agents who will take care of the money my father's going to leave me."

"You leave Martin alone, Ruth. He knows what's best for himself. Look at what he's done already. He makes

me sick sometimes, sick and ashamed of myself. He knows more now about the world, and life, and man's

place, and all the rest, than Arthur, or Norman, or I, or you, too, for that matter, and in spite of all our Latin,

"But Ruth is my teacher," Martin answered chivalrously. "She is responsible for what little I have learned."

"Rats!" Olney looked at Ruth, and his expression was malicious. "I suppose you'll be telling me next that you

read Spencer on her recommendation only you didn't. And she doesn't know anything more about Darwin

and evolution than I do about King Solomon's mines. What's that jawbreaker definition about something or

other, of Spencer's, that you sprang on us the other day that indefinite, incoherent homogeneity thing?

Spring it on her, and see if she understands a word of it. That isn't culture, you see. Well, tra la, and if you

And all the while, interested in the discussion, Martin had been aware of an irk in it as well. It was about

studies and lessons, dealing with the rudiments of knowledge, and the schoolboyish tone of it conflicted with

the big things that were stirring in him with the grip upon life that was even then crooking his fingers like

eagle's talons, with the cosmic thrills that made him ache, and with the inchoate consciousness of mastery of

it all. He likened himself to a poet, wrecked on the shores of a strange land, filled with power of beauty,

stumbling and stammering and vainly trying to sing in the rough, barbaric tongue of his brethren in the new

land. And so with him. He was alive, painfully alive, to the great universal things, and yet he was compelled

to potter and grope among schoolboy topics and debate whether or not he should study Latin.

"What in hell has Latin to do with it?" he demanded before his mirror that night. "I wish dead people would

stay dead. Why should I and the beauty in me be ruled by the dead? Beauty is alive and everlasting.

And his next thought was that he had been phrasing his ideas very well, and he went to bed wondering why

he could not talk in similar fashion when he was with Ruth. He was only a schoolboy, with a schoolboy's

It was not because of Olney, but in spite of Ruth, and his love for Ruth, that he finally decided not to take up

Latin. His money meant time. There was so much that was more important than Latin, so many studies that

clamored with imperious voices. And he must write. He must earn money. He had had no acceptances.

Twoscore of manuscripts were travelling the endless round of the magazines. How did the others do it? He

spent long hours in the free reading room, going over what others had written, studying their work eagerly

and critically, comparing it with his own, and wondering, wondering, about the secret trick they had

He was amazed at the immense amount of printed stuff that was dead. No light, no life, no color, was shot

through it. There was no breath of life in it, and yet it sold, at two cents a word, twenty dollars a thousand

the newspaper clipping had said so. He was puzzled by countless short stories, written lightly and cleverly he

confessed, but without vitality or reality. Life was so strange and wonderful, filled with an immensity of

problems, of dreams, and of heroic toils, and yet these stories dealt only with the commonplaces of life. He

felt the stress and strain of life, its fevers and sweats and wild insurgences surely this was the stuff to write

about! He wanted to glorify the leaders of forlorn hopes, the mad lovers, the giants that fought under stress

and strain, amid terror and tragedy, making life crackle with the strength of their endeavor. And yet the

magazine short stories seemed intent on glorifying the Mr. Butlers, the sordid dollarchasers, and the

commonplace little love affairs of commonplace little men and women. Was it because the editors of the

magazines were commonplace? he demanded. Or were they afraid of life, these writers and editors and

But his chief trouble was that he did not know any editors or writers. And not merely did he not know any

writers, but he did not know anybody who had ever attempted to write. There was nobody to tell him, to hint

to him, to give him the least word of advice. He began to doubt that editors were real men. They seemed cogs

in a machine. That was what it was, a machine. He poured his soul into stories, articles, and poems, and

intrusted them to the machine. He folded them just so, put the proper stamps inside the long envelope along

with the manuscript, sealed the envelope, put more stamps outside, and dropped it into the mailbox. It

travelled across the continent, and after a certain lapse of time the postman returned him the manuscript in

another long envelope, on the outside of which were the stamps he had enclosed. There was no human editor

at the other end, but a mere cunning arrangement of cogs that changed the manuscript from one envelope to

another and stuck on the stamps. It was like the slot machines wherein one dropped pennies, and, with a

metallic whirl of machinery had delivered to him a stick of chewinggum or a tablet of chocolate. It

depended upon which slot one dropped the penny in, whether he got chocolate or gum. And so with the

editorial machine. One slot brought checks and the other brought rejection slips. So far he had found only the

It was the rejection slips that completed the horrible machinelikeness of the process. These slips were printed

in stereotyped forms and he had received hundreds of them as many as a dozen or more on each of his

earlier manuscripts. If he had received one line, one personal line, along with one rejection of all his

rejections, he would have been cheered. But not one editor had given that proof of existence. And he could

conclude only that there were no warm human men at the other end, only mere cogs, well oiled and running

He was a good fighter, wholesouled and stubborn, and he would have been content to continue feeding the

machine for years; but he was bleeding to death, and not years but weeks would determine the fight. Each

week his board bill brought him nearer destruction, while the postage on forty manuscripts bled him almost

as severely. He no longer bought books, and he economized in petty ways and sought to delay the inevitable

end; though he did not know how to economize, and brought the end nearer by a week when he gave his

He struggled in the dark, without advice, without encouragement, and in the teeth of discouragement. Even

Gertrude was beginning to look askance. At first she had tolerated with sisterly fondness what she conceived

to be his foolishness; but now, out of sisterly solicitude, she grew anxious. To her it seemed that his

foolishness was becoming a madness. Martin knew this and suffered more keenly from it than from the open

and nagging contempt of Bernard Higginbotham. Martin had faith in himself, but he was alone in this faith.

Not even Ruth had faith. She had wanted him to devote himself to study, and, though she had not openly

He had never offered to show her his work. A fastidious delicacy had prevented him. Besides, she had been

studying heavily at the university, and he felt averse to robbing her of her time. But when she had taken her

degree, she asked him herself to let her see something of what he had been doing. Martin was elated and

diffident. Here was a judge. She was a bachelor of arts. She had studied literature under skilled instructors.

Perhaps the editors were capable judges, too. But she would be different from them. She would not hand him

a stereotyped rejection slip, nor would she inform him that lack of preference for his work did not necessarily

imply lack of merit in his work. She would talk, a warm human being, in her quick, bright way, and, most

important of all, she would catch glimpses of the real Martin Eden. In his work she would discern what his

heart and soul were like, and she would come to understand something, a little something, of the stuff of his

Martin gathered together a number of carbon copies of his short stories, hesitated a moment, then added his

"Sea Lyrics." They mounted their wheels on a late June afternoon and rode for the hills. It was the second

time he had been out with her alone, and as they rode along through the balmy warmth, just chilled by she

seabreeze to refreshing coolness, he was profoundly impressed by the fact that it was a very beautiful and

wellordered world and that it was good to be alive and to love. They left their wheels by the roadside and

climbed to the brown top of an open knoll where the sunburnt grass breathed a harvest breath of dry

"Its work is done," Martin said, as they seated themselves, she upon his coat, and he sprawling close to the

warm earth. He sniffed the sweetness of the tawny grass, which entered his brain and set his thoughts

whirling on from the particular to the universal. "It has achieved its reason for existence," he went on, patting

the dry grass affectionately. "It quickened with ambition under the dreary downpour of last winter, fought the

violent early spring, flowered, and lured the insects and the bees, scattered its seeds, squared itself with its

"Why do you always look at things with such dreadfully practical eyes?" she interrupted.

"Because I've been studying evolution, I guess. It's only recently that I got my eyesight, if the truth were

"But it seems to me you lose sight of beauty by being so practical, that you destroy beauty like the boys who

"Beauty has significance, but I never knew its significance before. I just accepted beauty as something

meaningless, as something that was just beautiful without rhyme or reason. I did not know anything about

beauty. But now I know, or, rather, am just beginning to know. This grass is more beautiful to me now that I

know why it is grass, and all the hidden chemistry of sun and rain and earth that makes it become grass. Why,

there is romance in the lifehistory of any grass, yes, and adventure, too. The very thought of it stirs me.

When I think of the play of force and matter, and all the tremendous struggle of it, I feel as if I could write an

"How well you talk," she said absently, and he noted that she was looking at him in a searching way.

He was all confusion and embarrassment on the instant, the blood flushing red on his neck and brow.

"I hope I am learning to talk," he stammered. "There seems to be so much in me I want to say. But it is all so

big. I can't find ways to say what is really in me. Sometimes it seems to me that all the world, all life,

everything, had taken up residence inside of me and was clamoring for me to be the spokesman. I feel oh, I

can't describe it I feel the bigness of it, but when I speak, I babble like a little child. It is a great task to

transmute feeling and sensation into speech, written or spoken, that will, in turn, in him who reads or listens,

transmute itself back into the selfsame feeling and sensation. It is a lordly task. See, I bury my face in the

grass, and the breath I draw in through my nostrils sets me quivering with a thousand thoughts and fancies. It

is a breath of the universe I have breathed. I know song and laughter, and success and pain, and struggle and

death; and I see visions that arise in my brain somehow out of the scent of the grass, and I would like to tell

them to you, to the world. But how can I? My tongue is tied. I have tried, by the spoken word, just now, to

describe to you the effect on me of the scent of the grass. But I have not succeeded. I have no more than

hinted in awkward speech. My words seem gibberish to me. And yet I am stifled with desire to tell. Oh! "

he threw up his hands with a despairing gesture "it is impossible! It is not understandable! It is

"But you do talk well," she insisted. "Just think how you have improved in the short time I have known you.

Mr. Butler is a noted public speaker. He is always asked by the State Committee to go out on stump during

campaign. Yet you talked just as well as he the other night at dinner. Only he was more controlled. You get

too excited; but you will get over that with practice. Why, you would make a good public speaker. You can

go far if you want to. You are masterly. You can lead men, I am sure, and there is no reason why you

should not succeed at anything you set your hand to, just as you have succeeded with grammar. You would

make a good lawyer. You should shine in politics. There is nothing to prevent you from making as great a

success as Mr. Butler has made. And minus the dyspepsia," she added with a smile.

They talked on; she, in her gently persistent way, returning always to the need of thorough grounding in

education and to the advantages of Latin as part of the foundation for any career. She drew her ideal of the

successful man, and it was largely in her father's image, with a few unmistakable lines and touches of color

from the image of Mr. Butler. He listened eagerly, with receptive ears, lying on his back and looking up and

joying in each movement of her lips as she talked. But his brain was not receptive. There was nothing alluring

in the pictures she drew, and he was aware of a dull pain of disappointment and of a sharper ache of love for

her. In all she said there was no mention of his writing, and the manuscripts he had brought to read lay

At last, in a pause, he glanced at the sun, measured its height above the horizon, and suggested his

He read to her a story, one that he flattered himself was among his very best. He called it "The Wine of Life,"

and the wine of it, that had stolen into his brain when he wrote it, stole into his brain now as he read it. There

was a certain magic in the original conception, and he had adorned it with more magic of phrase and touch.

All the old fire and passion with which he had written it were reborn in him, and he was swayed and swept

away so that he was blind and deaf to the faults of it. But it was not so with Ruth. Her trained ear detected the

weaknesses and exaggerations, the overemphasis of the tyro, and she was instantly aware each time the

sentencerhythm tripped and faltered. She scarcely noted the rhythm otherwise, except when it became too

pompous, at which moments she was disagreeably impressed with its amateurishness. That was her final

judgment on the story as a whole amateurish, though she did not tell him so. Instead, when he had done,

But he was disappointed. Her criticism was just. He acknowledged that, but he had a feeling that he was not

sharing his work with her for the purpose of schoolroom correction. The details did not matter. They could

take care of themselves. He could mend them, he could learn to mend them. Out of life he had captured

something big and attempted to imprison it in the story. It was the big thing out of life he had read to her, not

sentencestructure and semicolons. He wanted her to feel with him this big thing that was his, that he had

seen with his own eyes, grappled with his own brain, and placed there on the page with his own hands in

printed words. Well, he had failed, was his secret decision. Perhaps the editors were right. He had felt the big

thing, but he had failed to transmute it. He concealed his disappointment, and joined so easily with her in her

criticism that she did not realize that deep down in him was running a strong undercurrent of disagreement.

"This next thing I've called 'The Pot'," he said, unfolding the manuscript. "It has been refused by four or five

magazines now, but still I think it is good. In fact, I don't know what to think of it, except that I've caught

something there. Maybe it won't affect you as it does me. It's a short thing only two thousand words."

"How dreadful!" she cried, when he had finished. "It is horrible, unutterably horrible!"

He noted her pale face, her eyes wide and tense, and her clenched hands, with secret satisfaction. He had

succeeded. He had communicated the stuff of fancy and feeling from out of his brain. It had struck home. No

matter whether she liked it or not, it had gripped her and mastered her, made her sit there and listen and forget

"It is life," he said, "and life is not always beautiful. And yet, perhaps because I am strangely made, I find

something beautiful there. It seems to me that the beauty is tenfold enhanced because it is there "

"But why couldn't the poor woman " she broke in disconnectedly. Then she left the revolt of her thought

For the moment it seemed to him that his heart stood still. NASTY! He had never dreamed it. He had not

meant it. The whole sketch stood before him in letters of fire, and in such blaze of illumination he sought

"Why didn't you select a nice subject?" she was saying. "We know there are nasty things in the world, but

She talked on in her indignant strain, but he was not following her. He was smiling to himself as he looked up

into her virginal face, so innocent, so penetratingly innocent, that its purity seemed always to enter into him,

driving out of him all dross and bathing him in some ethereal effulgence that was as cool and soft and velvety

as starshine. WE KNOW THERE ARE NASTY THINGS IN THE WORLD! He cuddled to him the notion

of her knowing, and chuckled over it as a love joke. The next moment, in a flashing vision of multitudinous

detail, he sighted the whole sea of life's nastiness that he had known and voyaged over and through, and he

forgave her for not understanding the story. It was through no fault of hers that she could not understand. He

thanked God that she had been born and sheltered to such innocence. But he knew life, its foulness as well as

its fairness, its greatness in spite of the slime that infested it, and by God he was going to have his say on it to

the world. Saints in heaven how could they be anything but fair and pure? No praise to them. But saints in

slime ah, that was the everlasting wonder! That was what made life worth while. To see moral grandeur

rising out of cesspools of iniquity; to rise himself and first glimpse beauty, faint and far, through mud

dripping eyes; to see out of weakness, and frailty, and viciousness, and all abysmal brutishness, arising

"The tone of it all is low. And there is so much that is high. Take 'In Memoriam.'"

He was impelled to suggest "Locksley Hall," and would have done so, had not his vision gripped him again

and left him staring at her, the female of his kind, who, out of the primordial ferment, creeping and crawling

up the vast ladder of life for a thousand thousand centuries, had emerged on the topmost rung, having become

one Ruth, pure, and fair, and divine, and with power to make him know love, and to aspire toward purity, and

to desire to taste divinity him, Martin Eden, who, too, had come up in some amazing fashion from out of

the ruck and the mire and the countless mistakes and abortions of unending creation. There was the romance,

and the wonder, and the glory. There was the stuff to write, if he could only find speech. Saints in heaven!

"And you must develop discrimination. You must consult taste, and fineness, and tone."

"I don't know what you'll make of this," he said apologetically. "It's a funny thing. I'm afraid I got beyond my

depth in it, but my intentions were good. Don't bother about the little features of it. Just see if you catch the

feel of the big thing in it. It is big, and it is true, though the chance is large that I have failed to make it

He read, and as he read he watched her. At last he had reached her, he thought. She sat without movement,

her eyes steadfast upon him, scarcely breathing, caught up and out of herself, he thought, by the witchery of

the thing he had created. He had entitled the story "Adventure," and it was the apotheosis of adventure not

of the adventure of the storybooks, but of real adventure, the savage taskmaster, awful of punishment and

awful of reward, faithless and whimsical, demanding terrible patience and heartbreaking days and nights of

toil, offering the blazing sunlight glory or dark death at the end of thirst and famine or of the long drag and

monstrous delirium of rotting fever, through blood and sweat and stinging insects leading up by long chains

It was this, all of it, and more, that he had put into his story, and it was this, he believed, that warmed her as

she sat and listened. Her eyes were wide, color was in her pale cheeks, and before he finished it seemed to

him that she was almost panting. Truly, she was warmed; but she was warmed, not by the story, but by him.

She did not think much of the story; it was Martin's intensity of power, the old excess of strength that seemed

to pour from his body and on and over her. The paradox of it was that it was the story itself that was freighted

with his power, that was the channel, for the time being, through which his strength poured out to her. She

was aware only of the strength, and not of the medium, and when she seemed most carried away by what he

had written, in reality she had been carried away by something quite foreign to it by a thought, terrible and

perilous, that had formed itself unsummoned in her brain. She had caught herself wondering what marriage

was like, and the becoming conscious of the waywardness and ardor of the thought had terrified her. It was

unmaidenly. It was not like her. She had never been tormented by womanhood, and she had lived in a

dreamland of Tennysonian poesy, dense even to the full significance of that delicate master's delicate

allusions to the grossnesses that intrude upon the relations of queens and knights. She had been asleep,

always, and now life was thundering imperatively at all her doors. Mentally she was in a panic to shoot the

bolts and drop the bars into place, while wanton instincts urged her to throw wide her portals and bid the

Martin waited with satisfaction for her verdict. He had no doubt of what it would be, and he was astounded

Of course it was beautiful; but there was something more than mere beauty in it, something more stingingly

splendid which had made beauty its handmaiden. He sprawled silently on the ground, watching the grisly

form of a great doubt rising before him. He had failed. He was inarticulate. He had seen one of the greatest

"What did you think of the " He hesitated, abashed at his first attempt to use a strange word. "Of the

"It was confused," she answered. "That is my only criticism in the large way. I followed the story, but there

seemed so much else. It is too wordy. You clog the action by introducing so much extraneous material."

"That was the major MOTIF," he hurriedly explained, "the big underrunning MOTIF, the cosmic and

universal thing. I tried to make it keep time with the story itself, which was only superficial after all. I was on

the right scent, but I guess I did it badly. I did not succeed in suggesting what I was driving at. But I'll learn in

She did not follow him. She was a bachelor of arts, but he had gone beyond her limitations. This she did not

He heard her voice as from far off, for he was debating whether he would read her the "Sea Lyrics." He lay in

dull despair, while she watched him searchingly, pondering again upon unsummoned and wayward thoughts

"Yes, a little bit," he confessed. "That is part of the adventure. It is not the being famous, but the process of

becoming so, that counts. And after all, to be famous would be, for me, only a means to something else. I

"For your sake," he wanted to add, and might have added had she proved enthusiastic over what he had read

But she was too busy in her mind, carving out a career for him that would at least be possible, to ask what the

ultimate something was which he had hinted at. There was no career for him in literature. Of that she was

convinced. He had proved it today, with his amateurish and sophomoric productions. He could talk well, but

he was incapable of expressing himself in a literary way. She compared Tennyson, and Browning, and her

favorite prose masters with him, and to his hopeless discredit. Yet she did not tell him her whole mind. Her

strange interest in him led her to temporize. His desire to write was, after all, a little weakness which he

would grow out of in time. Then he would devote himself to the more serious affairs of life. And he would

succeed, too. She knew that. He was so strong that he could not fail if only he would drop writing.

He flushed with pleasure. She was interested, that much was sure. And at least she had not given him a

rejection slip. She had called certain portions of his work beautiful, and that was the first encouragement he

"I will," he said passionately. "And I promise you, Miss Morse, that I will make good. I have come far, I

know that; and I have far to go, and I will cover it if I have to do it on my hands and knees." He held up a

bunch of manuscript. "Here are the 'Sea Lyrics.' When you get home, I'll turn them over to you to read at your

leisure. And you must be sure to tell me just what you think of them. What I need, you know, above all

"I will be perfectly frank," she promised, with an uneasy conviction that she had not been frank with him and

"The first battle, fought and finished," Martin said to the lookingglass ten days later. "But there will be a

He had not finished the sentence, but looked about the mean little room and let his eyes dwell sadly upon a

heap of returned manuscripts, still in their long envelopes, which lay in a corner on the floor. He had no

stamps with which to continue them on their travels, and for a week they had been piling up. More of them

would come in on the morrow, and on the next day, and the next, till they were all in. And he would be

unable to start them out again. He was a month's rent behind on the typewriter, which he could not pay,

having barely enough for the week's board which was due and for the employment office fees.

He sat down and regarded the table thoughtfully. There were ink stains upon it, and he suddenly discovered

"Dear old table," he said, "I've spent some happy hours with you, and you've been a pretty good friend when

all is said and done. You never turned me down, never passed me out a rewardofunmerit rejection slip,

He dropped his arms upon the table and buried his face in them. His throat was aching, and he wanted to cry.

It reminded him of his first fight, when he was six years old, when he punched away with the tears running

down his cheeks while the other boy, two years his elder, had beaten and pounded him into exhaustion. He

saw the ring of boys, howling like barbarians as he went down at last, writhing in the throes of nausea, the

"Poor little shaver," he murmured. "And you're just as badly licked now. You're beaten to a pulp. You're

But the vision of that first fight still lingered under his eyelids, and as he watched he saw it dissolve and

reshape into the series of fights which had followed. Six months later CheeseFace (that was the boy) had

whipped him again. But he had blacked CheeseFace's eye that time. That was going some. He saw them all,

fight after fight, himself always whipped and CheeseFace exulting over him. But he had never run away. He

felt strengthened by the memory of that. He had always stayed and taken his medicine. CheeseFace had

been a little fiend at fighting, and had never once shown mercy to him. But he had stayed! He had stayed with

Next, he saw a narrow alley, between ramshackle frame buildings. The end of the alley was blocked by a

onestory brick building, out of which issued the rhythmic thunder of the presses, running off the first edition

of the ENQUIRER. He was eleven, and CheeseFace was thirteen, and they both carried the ENQUIRER.

That was why they were there, waiting for their papers. And, of course, Cheese Face had picked on him

again, and there was another fight that was indeterminate, because at quarter to four the door of the press

"I'll lick you tomorrow," he heard CheeseFace promise; and he heard his own voice, piping and trembling

And he had come there the next day, hurrying from school to be there first, and beating CheeseFace by two

minutes. The other boys said he was all right, and gave him advice, pointing out his faults as a scrapper and

promising him victory if he carried out their instructions. The same boys gave CheeseFace advice, too. How

they had enjoyed the fight! He paused in his recollections long enough to envy them the spectacle he and

CheeseFace had put up. Then the fight was on, and it went on, without rounds, for thirty minutes, until the

He watched the youthful apparition of himself, day after day, hurrying from school to the ENQUIRER alley.

He could not walk very fast. He was stiff and lame from the incessant fighting. His forearms were black and

blue from wrist to elbow, what of the countless blows he had warded off, and here and there the tortured flesh

was beginning to fester. His head and arms and shoulders ached, the small of his back ached, he ached all

over, and his brain was heavy and dazed. He did not play at school. Nor did he study. Even to sit still all day

at his desk, as he did, was a torment. It seemed centuries since he had begun the round of daily fights, and

time stretched away into a nightmare and infinite future of daily fights. Why couldn't CheeseFace be licked?

he often thought; that would put him, Martin, out of his misery. It never entered his head to cease fighting, to

And so he dragged himself to the ENQUIRER alley, sick in body and soul, but learning the long patience, to

confront his eternal enemy, CheeseFace, who was just as sick as he, and just a bit willing to quit if it were

not for the gang of newsboys that looked on and made pride painful and necessary. One afternoon, after

twenty minutes of desperate efforts to annihilate each other according to set rules that did not permit kicking,

striking below the belt, nor hitting when one was down, CheeseFace, panting for breath and reeling, offered

to call it quits. And Martin, head on arms, thrilled at the picture he caught of himself, at that moment in the

afternoon of long ago, when he reeled and panted and choked with the blood that ran into his mouth and

down his throat from his cut lips; when he tottered toward CheeseFace, spitting out a mouthful of blood so

that he could speak, crying out that he would never quit, though CheeseFace could give in if he wanted to.

The next day and the next, days without end, witnessed the afternoon fight. When he put up his arms, each

day, to begin, they pained exquisitely, and the first few blows, struck and received, racked his soul; after that

things grew numb, and he fought on blindly, seeing as in a dream, dancing and wavering, the large features

and burning, animallike eyes of CheeseFace. He concentrated upon that face; all else about him was a

whirling void. There was nothing else in the world but that face, and he would never know rest, blessed rest,

until he had beaten that face into a pulp with his bleeding knuckles, or until the bleeding knuckles that

somehow belonged to that face had beaten him into a pulp. And then, one way or the other, he would have

Came the day when he dragged himself into the ENQUIRER alley, and there was no CheeseFace. Nor did

CheeseFace come. The boys congratulated him, and told him that he had licked CheeseFace. But Martin

was not satisfied. He had not licked CheeseFace, nor had CheeseFace licked him. The problem had not

been solved. It was not until afterward that they learned that CheeseFace's father had died suddenly that

Martin skipped on through the years to the night in the nigger heaven at the Auditorium. He was seventeen

and just back from sea. A row started. Somebody was bullying somebody, and Martin interfered, to be

Martin nodded. The niggerheaven bouncer was making his way toward the disturbance.

"I'll meet you outside, after the last act," Martin whispered, the while his face showed undivided interest in

Between the acts he mustered his following three fellows he knew from the nail works, a railroad fireman,

and half a dozen of the Boo Gang, along with as many more from the dread Eighteenand Market Gang.

When the theatre let out, the two gangs strung along inconspicuously on opposite sides of the street. When

"Eighth Street Bridge is the place," said a redheaded fellow belonging to CheeseFace's Gang. "You kin

fight in the middle, under the electric light, an' whichever way the bulls come in we kin sneak the other way."

"That's agreeable to me," Martin said, after consulting with the leaders of his own gang.

The Eighth Street Bridge, crossing an arm of San Antonio Estuary, was the length of three city blocks. In the

middle of the bridge, and at each end, were electric lights. No policeman could pass those endlights unseen.

It was the safe place for the battle that revived itself under Martin's eyelids. He saw the two gangs, aggressive

and sullen, rigidly keeping apart from each other and backing their respective champions; and he saw himself

and Cheese Face stripping. A short distance away lookouts were set, their task being to watch the lighted

ends of the bridge. A member of the Boo Gang held Martin's coat, and shirt, and cap, ready to race with them

into safety in case the police interfered. Martin watched himself go into the centre, facing CheeseFace, and

"They ain't no handshakin' in this. Understand? They ain't nothin' but scrap. No throwin' up the sponge. This

is a grudge fight an' it's to a finish. Understand? Somebody's goin' to get licked."

CheeseFace wanted to demur, Martin could see that, but Cheese Face's old perilous pride was touched

"Aw, come on," he replied. "Wot's the good of chewin' de rag about it? I'm wit' cheh to de finish."

Then they fell upon each other, like young bulls, in all the glory of youth, with naked fists, with hatred, with

desire to hurt, to maim, to destroy. All the painful, thousand years' gains of man in his upward climb through

creation were lost. Only the electric light remained, a milestone on the path of the great human adventure.

Martin and CheeseFace were two savages, of the stone age, of the squatting place and the tree refuge. They

sank lower and lower into the muddy abyss, back into the dregs of the raw beginnings of life, striving blindly

and chemically, as atoms strive, as the stardust if the heavens strives, colliding, recoiling, and colliding

"God! We are animals! Brutebeasts!" Martin muttered aloud, as he watched the progress of the fight. It was

to him, with his splendid power of vision, like gazing into a kinetoscope. He was both onlooker and

participant. His long months of culture and refinement shuddered at the sight; then the present was blotted out

of his consciousness and the ghosts of the past possessed him, and he was Martin Eden, just returned from sea

and fighting CheeseFace on the Eighth Street Bridge. He suffered and toiled and sweated and bled, and

They were twin whirlwinds of hatred, revolving about each other monstrously. The time passed, and the two

hostile gangs became very quiet. They had never witnessed such intensity of ferocity, and they were awed by

it. The two fighters were greater brutes than they. The first splendid velvet edge of youth and condition wore

off, and they fought more cautiously and deliberately. There had been no advantage gained either way. "It's

anybody's fight," Martin heard some one saying. Then he followed up a feint, right and left, was fiercely

countered, and felt his cheek laid open to the bone. No bare knuckle had done that. He heard mutters of

amazement at the ghastly damage wrought, and was drenched with his own blood. But he gave no sign. He

became immensely wary, for he was wise with knowledge of the low cunning and foul vileness of his kind.

He watched and waited, until he feigned a wild rush, which he stopped midway, for he had seen the glint of

"Hold up yer hand!" he screamed. "Them's brass knuckles, an' you hit me with 'em!"

Both gangs surged forward, growling and snarling. In a second there would be a freeforall fight, and he

They shrank away from him. They were brutes, but he was the arch brute, a thing of terror that towered over

"This is my scrap, an' they ain't goin' to be no buttin' in. Gimme them knuckles."

"You passed 'em to him, you redhead sneakin' in behind the push there," Martin went on, as he tossed the

knuckles into the water. "I seen you, an' I was wonderin' what you was up to. If you try anything like that

They fought on, through exhaustion and beyond, to exhaustion immeasurable and inconceivable, until the

crowd of brutes, its bloodlust sated, terrified by what it saw, begged them impartially to cease. And

CheeseFace, ready to drop and die, or to stay on his legs and die, a grisly monster out of whose features all

likeness to CheeseFace had been beaten, wavered and hesitated; but Martin sprang in and smashed him

Next, after a seeming century or so, with CheeseFace weakening fast, in a mixup of blows there was a loud

snap, and Martin's right arm dropped to his side. It was a broken bone. Everybody heard it and knew; and

CheeseFace knew, rushing like a tiger in the other's extremity and raining blow on blow. Martin's gang

surged forward to interfere. Dazed by the rapid succession of blows, Martin warned them back with vile and

He punched on, with his left hand only, and as he punched, doggedly, only halfconscious, as from a remote

distance he heard murmurs of fear in the gangs, and one who said with shaking voice: "This ain't a scrap,

But no one stopped it, and he was glad, punching on wearily and endlessly with his one arm, battering away

at a bloody something before him that was not a face but a horror, an oscillating, hideous, gibbering,

nameless thing that persisted before his wavering vision and would not go away. And he punched on and on,

slower and slower, as the last shreds of vitality oozed from him, through centuries and aeons and enormous

lapses of time, until, in a dim way, he became aware that the nameless thing was sinking, slowly sinking

down to the rough boardplanking of the bridge. And the next moment he was standing over it, staggering

and swaying on shaky legs, clutching at the air for support, and saying in a voice he did not recognize:

He was still saying it, over and over, demanding, entreating, threatening, to know if it wanted any more,

when he felt the fellows of his gang laying hands on him, patting him on the back and trying to put his coat

The tin alarmclock on the table ticked on, but Martin Eden, his face buried on his arms, did not hear it. He

heard nothing. He did not think. So absolutely had he relived life that he had fainted just as he fainted years

before on the Eighth Street Bridge. For a full minute the blackness and the blankness endured. Then, like one

from the dead, he sprang upright, eyes flaming, sweat pouring down his face, shouting:

His knees were trembling under him, he felt faint, and he staggered back to the bed, sinking down and sitting

on the edge of it. He was still in the clutch of the past. He looked about the room, perplexed, alarmed,

wondering where he was, until he caught sight of the pile of manuscripts in the corner. Then the wheels of

memory slipped ahead through four years of time, and he was aware of the present, of the books he had

opened and the universe he had won from their pages, of his dreams and ambitions, and of his love for a pale

wraith of a girl, sensitive and sheltered and ethereal, who would die of horror did she witness but one moment

of what he had just lived through one moment of all the muck of life through which he had waded.

"And so you arise from the mud, Martin Eden," he said solemnly. "And you cleanse your eyes in a great

brightness, and thrust your shoulders among the stars, doing what all life has done, letting the 'ape and tiger

"A bit of hysteria and melodrama, eh?" he queried. "Well, never mind. You licked CheeseFace, and you'll

lick the editors if it takes twice eleven years to do it in. You can't stop here. You've got to go on. It's to a

The alarmclock went off, jerking Martin out of sleep with a suddenness that would have given headache to

one with less splendid constitution. Though he slept soundly, he awoke instantly, like a cat, and he awoke

eagerly, glad that the five hours of unconsciousness were gone. He hated the oblivion of sleep. There was too

much to do, too much of life to live. He grudged every moment of life sleep robbed him of, and before the

clock had ceased its clattering he was head and ears in the washbasin and thrilling to the cold bite of the

But he did not follow his regular programme. There was no unfinished story waiting his hand, no new story

demanding articulation. He had studied late, and it was nearly time for breakfast. He tried to read a chapter in

Fiske, but his brain was restless and he closed the book. Today witnessed the beginning of the new battle,

wherein for some time there would be no writing. He was aware of a sadness akin to that with which one

leaves home and family. He looked at the manuscripts in the corner. That was it. He was going away from

them, his pitiful, dishonored children that were welcome nowhere. He went over and began to rummage

among them, reading snatches here and there, his favorite portions. "The Pot" he honored with reading aloud,

as he did "Adventure." "Joy," his latestborn, completed the day before and tossed into the corner for lack of

"I can't understand," he murmured. "Or maybe it's the editors who can't understand. There's nothing wrong

with that. They publish worse every month. Everything they publish is worse nearly everything, anyway."

After breakfast he put the typewriter in its case and carried it down into Oakland.

"I owe a month on it," he told the clerk in the store. "But you tell the manager I'm going to work and that I'll

He crossed on the ferry to San Francisco and made his way to an employment office. "Any kind of work, no

trade," he told the agent; and was interrupted by a newcomer, dressed rather foppishly, as some workingmen

dress who have instincts for finer things. The agent shook his head despondently.

He turned and stared at Martin, and Martin, staring back, noted the puffed and discolored face, handsome and

"Hard labor, sailorizing, run a typewriter, no shorthand, can sit on a horse, willing to do anything and tackle

"Sounds good to me. My name's Dawson, Joe Dawson, an' I'm tryin' to scare up a laundryman."

"Too much for me." Martin caught an amusing glimpse of himself ironing fluffy white things that women

wear. But he had taken a liking to the other, and he added: "I might do the plain washing. I learned that much

"This is a small laundry, up country, belongs to Shelly Hot Springs, hotel, you know. Two men do the

work, boss and assistant. I'm the boss. You don't work for me, but you work under me. Think you'd be willin'

Martin paused to think. The prospect was alluring. A few months of it, and he would have time to himself for

That settled it. A room to himself where he could burn the midnight oil unmolested.

Martin caressed his swelling shouldermuscles significantly. "That came from hard work."

"Then let's get to it." Joe held his hand to his head for a moment. "Gee, but it's a stemwinder. Can hardly

see. I went down the line last night everything everything. Here's the frameup. The wages for two is a

hundred and board. I've ben drawin' down sixty, the second man forty. But he knew the biz. You're green. If I

break you in, I'll be doing plenty of your work at first. Suppose you begin at thirty, an' work up to the forty.

"I'll go you," Martin announced, stretching out his hand, which the other shook. "Any advance? for

"I blew it in," was Joe's sad answer, with another reach at his aching head. "All I got is a return ticket."

Joe whistled a long, perplexed whistle, and racked his brains to little purpose.

"I've got the price of the drinks," he said desperately. "Come on, an' mebbe we'll cook up something."

"But I somehow just can't," he said in extenuation. "After I've ben workin' like hell all week I just got to

booze up. If I didn't, I'd cut my throat or burn up the premises. But I'm glad you're on the wagon. Stay with

Martin knew of the enormous gulf between him and this man the gulf the books had made; but he found no

difficulty in crossing back over that gulf. He had lived all his life in the working class world, and the

CAMARADERIE of labor was second nature with him. He solved the difficulty of transportation that was

too much for the other's aching head. He would send his trunk up to Shelly Hot Springs on Joe's ticket. As for

himself, there was his wheel. It was seventy miles, and he could ride it on Sunday and be ready for work

Monday morning. In the meantime he would go home and pack up. There was no one to say goodby to.

Ruth and her whole family were spending the long summer in the Sierras, at Lake Tahoe.

He arrived at Shelly Hot Springs, tired and dusty, on Sunday night. Joe greeted him exuberantly. With a wet

"Part of last week's washin' mounted up, me bein' away to get you," he explained. "Your box arrived all right.

It's in your room. But it's a hell of a thing to call a trunk. An' what's in it? Gold bricks?"

Joe sat on the bed while Martin unpacked. The box was a packing case for breakfast food, and Mr.

Higginbotham had charged him half a dollar for it. Two rope handles, nailed on by Martin, had technically

transformed it into a trunk eligible for the baggage car. Joe watched, with bulging eyes, a few shirts and

several changes of underclothes come out of the box, followed by books, and more books.

Martin nodded, and went on arranging the books on a kitchen table which served in the room in place of a

"Gee!" Joe exploded, then waited in silence for the deduction to arise in his brain. At last it came.

"No," was the answer. "I used to chase a lot before I tackled the books. But since then there's no time."

Martin thought of his five hours' sleep a night, and smiled. The room was situated over the laundry and was

in the same building with the engine that pumped water, made electricity, and ran the laundry machinery. The

engineer, who occupied the adjoining room, dropped in to meet the new hand and helped Martin rig up an

electric bulb, on an extension wire, so that it travelled along a stretched cord from over the table to the bed.

The next morning, at quarterpast six, Martin was routed out for a quartertoseven breakfast. There

happened to be a bathtub for the servants in the laundry building, and he electrified Joe by taking a cold

"Gee, but you're a hummer!" Joe announced, as they sat down to breakfast in a corner of the hotel kitchen.

With them was the engineer, the gardener, and the assistant gardener, and two or three men from the stable.

They ate hurriedly and gloomily, with but little conversation, and as Martin ate and listened he realized how

far he had travelled from their status. Their small mental caliber was depressing to him, and he was anxious

to get away from them. So he bolted his breakfast, a sickly, sloppy affair, as rapidly as they, and heaved a

It was a perfectly appointed, small steam laundry, wherein the most modern machinery did everything that

was possible for machinery to do. Martin, after a few instructions, sorted the great heaps of soiled clothes,

while Joe started the masher and made up fresh supplies of softsoap, compounded of biting chemicals that

compelled him to swathe his mouth and nostrils and eyes in bath towels till he resembled a mummy.

Finished the sorting, Martin lent a hand in wringing the clothes. This was done by dumping them into a

spinning receptacle that went at a rate of a few thousand revolutions a minute, tearing the matter from the

clothes by centrifugal force. Then Martin began to alternate between the dryer and the wringer, between

times "shaking out" socks and stockings. By the afternoon, one feeding and one, stacking up, they were

running socks and stockings through the mangle while the irons were heating. Then it was hot irons and

"Way behind," he said. "Got to work after supper." And after supper they worked until ten o'clock, under the

blazing electric lights, until the last piece of underclothing was ironed and folded away in the distributing

room. It was a hot California night, and though the windows were thrown wide, the room, with its redhot

ironingstove, was a furnace. Martin and Joe, down to undershirts, bare armed, sweated and panted for air.

"You'll do," Joe answered. "You take hold like a good fellow. If you keep up the pace, you'll be on thirty

dollars only one month. The second month you'll be gettin' your forty. But don't tell me you never ironed

He was surprised at his weariness when he act into his room, forgetful of the fact that he had been on his feet

and working without let up for fourteen hours. He set the alarm clock at six, and measured back five hours to

one o'clock. He could read until then. Slipping off his shoes, to ease his swollen feet, he sat down at the table

with his books. He opened Fiske, where he had left off to read. But he found trouble began to read it through

a second time. Then he awoke, in pain from his stiffened muscles and chilled by the mountain wind that had

begun to blow in through the window. He looked at the clock. It marked two. He had been asleep four hours.

He pulled off his clothes and crawled into bed, where he was asleep the moment after his head touched the

Tuesday was a day of similar unremitting toil. The speed with which Joe worked won Martin's admiration.

Joe was a dozen of demons for work. He was keyed up to concert pitch, and there was never a moment in the

long day when he was not fighting for moments. He concentrated himself upon his work and upon how to

save time, pointing out to Martin where he did in five motions what could be done in three, or in three

motions what could be done in two. "Elimination of waste motion," Martin phrased it as he watched and

patterned after. He was a good workman himself, quick and deft, and it had always been a point of pride with

him that no man should do any of his work for him or outwork him. As a result, he concentrated with a

similar singleness of purpose, greedily snapping up the hints and suggestions thrown out by his working

mate. He "rubbed out' collars and cuffs, rubbing the starch out from between the double thicknesses of linen

so that there would be no blisters when it came to the ironing, and doing it at a pace that elicited Joe's praise.

There was never an interval when something was not at hand to be done. Joe waited for nothing, waited on

nothing, and went on the jump from task to task. They starched two hundred white shirts, with a single

gathering movement seizing a shirt so that the wristbands, neckband, yoke, and bosom protruded beyond the

circling right hand. At the same moment the left hand held up the body of the shirt so that it would not enter

the starch, and at the moment the right hand dipped into the starch starch so hot that, in order to wring it

out, their hands had to thrust, and thrust continually, into a bucket of cold water. And that night they worked

till halfpast ten, dipping "fancy starch" all the frilled and airy, delicate wear of ladies.

"And me out of a job," Joe answered seriously. "I don't know nothin' but laundrying."

"I ought to. Began in the Contra Costa in Oakland when I was eleven, shakin' out for the mangle. That was

eighteen years ago, an' I've never done a tap of anything else. But this job is the fiercest I ever had. Ought to

be one more man on it at least. We work tomorrow night. Always run the mangle Wednesday nights

Martin set his alarm, drew up to the table, and opened Fiske. He did not finish the first paragraph. The lines

blurred and ran together and his head nodded. He walked up and down, batting his head savagely with his

fists, but he could not conquer the numbness of sleep. He propped the book before him, and propped his

eyelids with his fingers, and fell asleep with his eyes wide open. Then he surrendered, and, scarcely

conscious of what he did, got off his clothes and into bed. He slept seven hours of heavy, animallike sleep,

"Never mind. We got to run the mangle tonight, but Thursday we'll knock off at six. That'll give you a

Martin washed woollens that day, by hand, in a large barrel, with strong softsoap, by means of a hub from a

wagon wheel, mounted on a plungerpole that was attached to a springpole overhead.

"My invention," Joe said proudly. "Beats a washboard an' your knuckles, and, besides, it saves at least fifteen

minutes in the week, an' fifteen minutes ain't to be sneezed at in this shebang."

Running the collars and cuffs through the mangle was also Joe's idea. That night, while they toiled on under

"Something no laundry ever does, except this one. An' I got to do it if I'm goin' to get done Saturday

afternoon at three o'clock. But I know how, an' that's the difference. Got to have right heat, right pressure, and

run 'em through three times. Look at that!" He held a cuff aloft. "Couldn't do it better by hand or on a tiler."

"I'm goin' to quit," he announced. "I won't stand for it. I'm goin' to quit it cold. What's the good of me workin'

like a slave all week, asavin' minutes, an' them acomin' an' ringin' in fancy starch extras on me? This is a

free country, an' I'm to tell that fat Dutchman what I think of him. An' I won't tell 'm in French. Plain United

"We got to work tonight," he said the next moment, reversing his judgment and surrendering to fate.

And Martin did no reading that night. He had seen no daily paper all week, and, strangely to him, felt no

desire to see one. He was not interested in the news. He was too tired and jaded to be interested in anything,

though he planned to leave Saturday afternoon, if they finished at three, and ride on his wheel to Oakland. It

was seventy miles, and the same distance back on Sunday afternoon would leave him anything but rested for

the second week's work. It would have been easier to go on the train, but the round trip was two dollars and a

Martin learned to do many things. In the course of the first week, in one afternoon, he and Joe accounted for

the two hundred white shirts. Joe ran the tiler, a machine wherein a hot iron was hooked on a steel string

which furnished the pressure. By this means he ironed the yoke, wristbands, and neckband, setting the latter

at right angles to the shirt, and put the glossy finish on the bosom. As fast as he finished them, he flung the

shirts on a rack between him and Martin, who caught them up and "backed" them. This task consisted of

It was exhausting work, carried on, hour after hour, at top speed. Out on the broad verandas of the hotel, men

and women, in cool white, sipped iced drinks and kept their circulation down. But in the laundry the air was

sizzling. The huge stove roared red hot and white hot, while the irons, moving over the damp cloth, sent up

clouds of steam. The heat of these irons was different from that used by housewives. An iron that stood the

ordinary test of a wet finger was too cold for Joe and Martin, and such test was useless. They went wholly by

holding the irons close to their cheeks, gauging the heat by some secret mental process that Martin admired

but could not understand. When the fresh irons proved too hot, they hooked them on iron rods and dipped

them into cold water. This again required a precise and subtle judgment. A fraction of a second too long in

the water and the fine and silken edge of the proper heat was lost, and Martin found time to marvel at the

accuracy he developed an automatic accuracy, founded upon criteria that were machinelike and unerring.

But there was little time in which to marvel. All Martin's consciousness was concentrated in the work.

Ceaselessly active, head and hand, an intelligent machine, all that constituted him a man was devoted to

furnishing that intelligence. There was no room in his brain for the universe and its mighty problems. All the

broad and spacious corridors of his mind were closed and hermetically sealed. The echoing chamber of his

soul was a narrow room, a conning tower, whence were directed his arm and shoulder muscles, his ten nimble

fingers, and the swiftmoving iron along its steaming path in broad, sweeping strokes, just so many strokes

and no more, just so far with each stroke and not a fraction of an inch farther, rushing along interminable

sleeves, sides, backs, and tails, and tossing the finished shirts, without rumpling, upon the receiving frame.

And even as his hurrying soul tossed, it was reaching for another shirt. This went on, hour after hour, while

outside all the world swooned under the overhead California sun. But there was no swooning in that

The sweat poured from Martin. He drank enormous quantities of water, but so great was the heat of the day

and of his exertions, that the water sluiced through the interstices of his flesh and out at all his pores. Always,

at sea, except at rare intervals, the work he performed had given him ample opportunity to commune with

himself. The master of the ship had been lord of Martin's time; but here the manager of the hotel was lord of

Martin's thoughts as well. He had no thoughts save for the nerveracking, body destroying toil. Outside of

that it was impossible to think. He did not know that he loved Ruth. She did not even exist, for his driven soul

had no time to remember her. It was only when he crawled to bed at night, or to breakfast in the morning, that

Martin nodded, but felt a rasp of irritation. The statement had been obvious and unnecessary. They did not

talk while they worked. Conversation threw them out of their stride, as it did this time, compelling Martin to

miss a stroke of his iron and to make two extra motions before he caught his stride again.

On Friday morning the washer ran. Twice a week they had to put through hotel linen, the sheets,

pillowslips, spreads, table cloths, and napkins. This finished, they buckled down to "fancy starch." It was

slow work, fastidious and delicate, and Martin did not learn it so readily. Besides, he could not take chances.

"See that," Joe said, holding up a filmy corsetcover that he could have crumpled from view in one hand.

So Martin did not scorch that, and eased down on his muscular tension, though nervous tension rose higher

than ever, and he listened sympathetically to the other's blasphemies as he toiled and suffered over the

beautiful things that women wear when they do not have to do their own laundrying. "Fancy starch" was

Martin's nightmare, and it was Joe's, too. It was "fancy starch" that robbed them of their hardwon minutes.

They toiled at it all day. At seven in the evening they broke off to run the hotel linen through the mangle. At

ten o'clock, while the hotel guests slept, the two laundrymen sweated on at "fancy starch" till midnight, till

Saturday morning it was "fancy starch," and odds and ends, and at three in the afternoon the week's work was

"You ain't agoin' to ride them seventy miles into Oakland on top of this?" Joe demanded, as they sat on the

"No; to save two and a half on the railroad ticket. I want to renew some books at the library."

"Why don't you send 'em down an' up by express? That'll cost only a quarter each way."

"An' take a rest tomorrow," the other urged. "You need it. I know I do. I'm plumb tuckered out."

He looked it. Indomitable, never resting, fighting for seconds and minutes all week, circumventing delays and

crushing down obstacles, a fount of resistless energy, a highdriven human motor, a demon for work, now

that he had accomplished the week's task he was in a state of collapse. He was worn and haggard, and his

handsome face drooped in lean exhaustion. He pulled his cigarette spiritlessly, and his voice was peculiarly

dead and monotonous. All the snap and fire had gone out of him. His triumph seemed a sorry one.

"An' next week we got to do it all over again," he said sadly. "An' what's the good of it all, hey? Sometimes I

wish I was a hobo. They don't work, an' they get their livin'. Gee! I wish I had a glass of beer; but I can't get

up the gumption to go down to the village an' get it. You'll stay over, an' send your books dawn by express, or

"Rest. You don't know how tired you are. Why, I'm that tired Sunday I can't even read the papers. I was sick

once typhoid. In the hospital two months an' a half. Didn't do a tap of work all that time. It was beautiful."

Martin took a bath, after which he found that the head laundryman had disappeared. Most likely he had gone

for a glass of beer Martin decided, but the halfmile walk down to the village to find out seemed a long

journey to him. He lay on his bed with his shoes off, trying to make up his mind. He did not reach out for a

book. He was too tired to feel sleepy, and he lay, scarcely thinking, in a semistupor of weariness, until it

was time for supper. Joe did not appear for that function, and when Martin heard the gardener remark that

most likely he was ripping the slats off the bar, Martin understood. He went to bed immediately afterward,

and in the morning decided that he was greatly rested. Joe being still absent, Martin procured a Sunday paper

and lay down in a shady nook under the trees. The morning passed, he knew not how. He did not sleep,

nobody disturbed him, and he did not finish the paper. He came back to it in the afternoon, after dinner, and

So passed Sunday, and Monday morning he was hard at work, sorting clothes, while Joe, a towel bound

tightly around his head, with groans and blasphemies, was running the washer and mixing soft soap.

"I simply can't help it," he explained. "I got to drink when Saturday night comes around."

Another week passed, a great battle that continued under the electric lights each night and that culminated on

Saturday afternoon at three o'clock, when Joe tasted his moment of wilted triumph and then drifted down to

the village to forget. Martin's Sunday was the same as before. He slept in the shade of the trees, toiled

aimlessly through the newspaper, and spent long hours lying on his back, doing nothing, thinking nothing. He

was too dazed to think, though he was aware that he did not like himself. He was selfrepelled, as though he

had undergone some degradation or was intrinsically foul. All that was godlike in him was blotted out. The

spur of ambition was blunted; he had no vitality with which to feel the prod of it. He was dead. His soul

seemed dead. He was a beast, a workbeast. He saw no beauty in the sunshine sifting down through the green

leaves, nor did the azure vault of the sky whisper as of old and hint of cosmic vastness and secrets trembling

to disclosure. Life was intolerably dull and stupid, and its taste was bad in his mouth. A black screen was

drawn across his mirror of inner vision, and fancy lay in a darkened sickroom where entered no ray of light.

He envied Joe, down in the village, rampant, tearing the slats off the bar, his brain gnawing with maggots,

exulting in maudlin ways over maudlin things, fantastically and gloriously drunk and forgetful of Monday

A third week went by, and Martin loathed himself, and loathed life. He was oppressed by a sense of failure.

There was reason for the editors refusing his stuff. He could see that clearly now, and laugh at himself and

the dreams he had dreamed. Ruth returned his "Sea Lyrics" by mail. He read her letter apathetically. She did

her best to say how much she liked them and that they were beautiful. But she could not lie, and she could not

disguise the truth from herself. She knew they were failures, and he read her disapproval in every perfunctory

and unenthusiastic line of her letter. And she was right. He was firmly convinced of it as he read the poems

over. Beauty and wonder had departed from him, and as he read the poems he caught himself puzzling as to

what he had had in mind when he wrote them. His audacities of phrase struck him as grotesque, his felicities

of expression were monstrosities, and everything was absurd, unreal, and impossible. He would have burned

the "Sea Lyrics" on the spot, had his will been strong enough to set them aflame. There was the engineroom,

but the exertion of carrying them to the furnace was not worth while. All his exertion was used in washing

He resolved that when Sunday came he would pull himself together and answer Ruth's letter. But Saturday

afternoon, after work was finished and he had taken a bath, the desire to forget overpowered him. "I guess I'll

go down and see how Joe's getting on," was the way he put it to himself; and in the same moment he knew

that he lied. But he did not have the energy to consider the lie. If he had had the energy, he would have

refused to consider the lie, because he wanted to forget. He started for the village slowly and casually,

Martin did not deign to offer excuses, but called for whiskey, filling his own glass brimming before he passed

The other was dawdling with the bottle, and Martin refused to wait for him, tossing the glass off in a gulp and

"It's fair hell, I know," the other went on, "but I kind of hate to see you come off the wagon, Mart. Well,

Martin drank on silently, biting out his orders and invitations and awing the barkeeper, an effeminate country

"It's something scandalous the way they work us poor devils," Joe was remarking. "If I didn't bowl up, I'd

break loose an' burn down the shebang. My bowlin' up is all that saves 'em, I can tell you that."

But Martin made no answer. A few more drinks, and in his brain he felt the maggots of intoxication

beginning to crawl. Ah, it was living, the first breath of life he had breathed in three weeks. His dreams came

back to him. Fancy came out of the darkened room and lured him on, a thing of flaming brightness. His

mirror of vision was silverclear, a flashing, dazzling palimpsest of imagery. Wonder and beauty walked

with him, hand in hand, and all power was his. He tried to tell it to Joe, but Joe had visions of his own,

infallible schemes whereby he would escape the slavery of laundrywork and become himself the owner of a

"I tell yeh, Mart, they won't be no kids workin' in my laundry not on yer life. An' they won't be no workin' a

livin' soul after six P.M. You hear me talk! They'll be machinery enough an' hands enough to do it all in

decent workin' hours, an' Mart, s'help me, I'll make yeh superintendent of the shebang the whole of it, all of

it. Now here's the scheme. I get on the waterwagon an' save my money for two years save an' then "

But Martin turned away, leaving him to tell it to the barkeeper, until that worthy was called away to furnish

drinks to two farmers who, coming in, accepted Martin's invitation. Martin dispensed royal largess, inviting

everybody up, farmhands, a stableman, and the gardener's assistant from the hotel, the barkeeper, and the

furtive hobo who slid in like a shadow and like a shadow hovered at the end of the bar.

"That's all right, old man," he said. "We're in hell, an' we can't help ourselves. An', you know, I kind of like

"Let's quit," Joe suggested. "Let's chuck it, an' go hoboin'. I ain't never tried it, but it must be dead easy. An'

nothin' to do. Just think of it, nothin' to do. I was sick once, typhoid, in the hospital, an' it was beautiful. I

The week dragged on. The hotel was full, and extra "fancy starch" poured in upon them. They performed

prodigies of valor. They fought late each night under the electric lights, bolted their meals, and even got in a

half hour's work before breakfast. Martin no longer took his cold baths. Every moment was drive, drive,

drive, and Joe was the masterful shepherd of moments, herding them carefully, never losing one, counting

them over like a miser counting gold, working on in a frenzy, toilmad, a feverish machine, aided ably by

that other machine that thought of itself as once having been one Martin Eden, a man.

But it was only at rare moments that Martin was able to think. The house of thought was closed, its windows

boarded up, and he was its shadowy caretaker. He was a shadow. Joe was right. They were both shadows, and

this was the unending limbo of toil. Or was it a dream? Sometimes, in the steaming, sizzling heat, as he

swung the heavy irons back and forth over the white garments, it came to him that it was a dream. In a short

while, or maybe after a thousand years or so, he would awake, in his little room with the ink stained table,

and take up his writing where he had left off the day before. Or maybe that was a dream, too, and the

awakening would be the changing of the watches, when he would drop down out of his bunk in the lurching

forecastle and go up on deck, under the tropic stars, and take the wheel and feel the cool tradewind blowing

"Guess I'll go down an' get a glass of beer," Joe said, in the queer, monotonous tones that marked his

Martin seemed suddenly to wake up. He opened the kit bag and oiled his wheel, putting graphite on the chain

and adjusting the bearings. Joe was halfway down to the saloon when Martin passed by, bending low over the

handlebars, his legs driving the ninety six gear with rhythmic strength, his face set for seventy miles of

road and grade and dust. He slept in Oakland that night, and on Sunday covered the seventy miles back. And

A fifth week passed, and a sixth, during which he lived and toiled as a machine, with just a spark of

something more in him, just a glimmering bit of soul, that compelled him, at each weekend, to scorch off

the hundred and forty miles. But this was not rest. It was supermachinelike, and it helped to crush out the

glimmering bit of soul that was all that was left him from former life. At the end of the seventh week, without

intending it, too weak to resist, he drifted down to the village with Joe and drowned life and found life until

Again, at the weekends, he ground out the one hundred and forty miles, obliterating the numbness of too

great exertion by the numbness of still greater exertion. At the end of three months he went down a third time

to the village with Joe. He forgot, and lived again, and, living, he saw, in clear illumination, the beast he was

making of himself not by the drink, but by the work. The drink was an effect, not a cause. It followed

inevitably upon the work, as the night follows upon the day. Not by becoming a toil beast could he win to

the heights, was the message the whiskey whispered to him, and he nodded approbation. The whiskey was

He called for paper and pencil, and for drinks all around, and while they drank his very good health, he clung

Joe read it with a drunken, quizzical leer. But what he read seemed to sober him. He looked at the other

Martin nodded, and called one of the loungers to him to take the message to the telegraph office.

He held on to the bar, his legs wobbling under him, Martin's arm around him and supporting him, while he

"By God, I think you're right! Better a hobo than a beast of toil. Why, man, you'll live. And that's more than

"I was in hospital, once," Joe corrected. "It was beautiful. Typhoid did I tell you?"

"I never wanted to drink when I was in hospital. Funny, ain't it? But when I've ben workin' like a slave all

week, I just got to bowl up. Ever noticed that cooks drink like hell? an' bakers, too? It's the work. They've

"Come on, everybody drink," Joe called, as they rattled the dice and rolled them out on the damp bar.

Monday morning Joe was wild with anticipation. He did not mind his aching head, nor did he take interest in

his work. Whole herds of moments stole away and were lost while their careless shepherd gazed out of the

"Just look at it!" he cried. "An' it's all mine! It's free. I can lie down under them trees an' sleep for a thousan'

years if I want to. Aw, come on, Mart, let's chuck it. What's the good of waitin' another moment. That's the

land of nothin' to do out there, an' I got a ticket for it an' it ain't no return ticket, b'gosh!"

A few minutes later, filling the truck with soiled clothes for the washer, Joe spied the hotel manager's shirt.

He knew its mark, and with a sudden glorious consciousness of freedom he threw it on the floor and stamped

"I wish you was in it, you pigheaded Dutchman!" he shouted. "In it, an' right there where I've got you! Take

Martin laughed and held him to his work. On Tuesday night the new laundrymen arrived, and the rest of the

week was spent breaking them into the routine. Joe sat around and explained his system, but he did no more

"Not a tap," he announced. "Not a tap. They can fire me if they want to, but if they do, I'll quit. No more work

in mine, thank you kindly. Me for the freight cars an' the shade under the trees. Go to it, you slaves! That's

right. Slave an' sweat! Slave an' sweat! An' when you're dead, you'll rot the same as me, an' what's it matter

"They ain't no use in me askin' you to change your mind an' hit the road with me?" Joe asked hopelessly:

Martin shook his head. He was standing by his wheel, ready to start. They shook hands, and Joe held on to

"I'm goin' to see you again, Mart, before you an' me die. That's straight dope. I feel it in my bones. Goodby,

He stood, a forlorn figure, in the middle of the road, watching until Martin turned a bend and was gone from

Then he plodded down the road himself, to the water tank, where half a dozen empties lay on a sidetrack

Ruth and her family were home again, and Martin, returned to Oakland, saw much of her. Having gained her

degree, she was doing no more studying; and he, having worked all vitality out of his mind and body, was

doing no writing. This gave them time for each other that they had never had before, and their intimacy

At first, Martin had done nothing but rest. He had slept a great deal, and spent long hours musing and

thinking and doing nothing. He was like one recovering from some terrible bout if hardship. The first signs of

reawakening came when he discovered more than languid interest in the daily paper. Then he began to read

again light novels, and poetry; and after several days more he was head over heels in his longneglected

Fiske. His splendid body and health made new vitality, and he possessed all the resiliency and rebound of

Ruth showed her disappointment plainly when he announced that he was going to sea for another voyage as

"Money," was the answer. "I'll have to lay in a supply for my next attack on the editors. Money is the sinews

"Because the laundry was making a beast of me. Too much work of that sort drives to drink."

It would have been easy for him to get out of it; but his natural impulse was for frankness, and he

"Then they never worked in the laundry at Shelly Hot Springs," he laughed bitterly. "Toil is a good thing. It is

necessary for human health, so all the preachers say, and Heaven knows I've never been afraid of it. But there

is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and the laundry up there is one of them. And that's why I'm going

to sea one more voyage. It will be my last, I think, for when I come back, I shall break into the magazines. I

She was silent, unsympathetic, and he watched her moodily, realizing how impossible it was for her to

"Some day I shall write it up 'The Degradation of Toil' or the 'Psychology of Drink in the Workingclass,'

Never, since the first meeting, had they seemed so far apart as that day. His confession, told in frankness,

with the spirit of revolt behind, had repelled her. But she was more shocked by the repulsion itself than by the

cause of it. It pointed out to her how near she had drawn to him, and once accepted, it paved the way for

greater intimacy. Pity, too, was aroused, and innocent, idealistic thoughts of reform. She would save this raw

young man who had come so far. She would save him from the curse of his early environment, and she would

save him from himself in spite of himself. And all this affected her as a very noble state of consciousness; nor

did she dream that behind it and underlying it were the jealousy and desire of love.

They rode on their wheels much in the delightful fall weather, and out in the hills they read poetry aloud, now

one and now the other, noble, uplifting poetry that turned one's thoughts to higher things. Renunciation,

sacrifice, patience, industry, and high endeavor were the principles she thus indirectly preached such

abstractions being objectified in her mind by her father, and Mr. Butler, and by Andrew Carnegie, who, from

a poor immigrant boy had arisen to be the bookgiver of the world. All of which was appreciated and

enjoyed by Martin. He followed her mental processes more clearly now, and her soul was no longer the

sealed wonder it had been. He was on terms of intellectual equality with her. But the points of disagreement

did not affect his love. His love was more ardent than ever, for he loved her for what she was, and even her

physical frailty was an added charm in his eyes. He read of sickly Elizabeth Barrett, who for years had not

placed her feet upon the ground, until that day of flame when she eloped with Browning and stood upright,

upon the earth, under the open sky; and what Browning had done for her, Martin decided he could do for

Ruth. But first, she must love him. The rest would be easy. He would give her strength and health. And he

caught glimpses of their life, in the years to come, wherein, against a background of work and comfort and

general wellbeing, he saw himself and Ruth reading and discussing poetry, she propped amid a multitude of

cushions on the ground while she read aloud to him. This was the key to the life they would live. And always

he saw that particular picture. Sometimes it was she who leaned against him while he read, one arm about

her, her head upon his shoulder. Sometimes they pored together over the printed pages of beauty. Then, too,

she loved nature, and with generous imagination he changed the scene of their reading sometimes they read

in closedin valleys with precipitous walls, or in high mountain meadows, and, again, down by the gray

sanddunes with a wreath of billows at their feet, or afar on some volcanic tropic isle where waterfalls

descended and became mist, reaching the sea in vapor veils that swayed and shivered to every vagrant wisp

of wind. But always, in the foreground, lords of beauty and eternally reading and sharing, lay he and Ruth,

and always in the background that was beyond the background of nature, dim and hazy, were work and

success and money earned that made them free of the world and all its treasures.

"I should recommend my little girl to be careful," her mother warned her one day.

Ruth was blushing, but it was the blush of maidenhood called upon for the first time to discuss the sacred

"I did not want to say it, but he is not. He is rough, brutal, strong too strong. He has not "

She hesitated and could not go on. It was a new experience, talking over such matters with her mother. And

"It is just that," she said. "It has not been his fault, but he has played much with "

"Yes, with pitch. And he frightens me. Sometimes I am positively in terror of him, when he talks in that free

and easy way of the things he has done as if they did not matter. They do matter, don't they?"

They sat with their arms twined around each other, and in the pause her mother patted her hand and waited

"But I am interested in him dreadfully," she continued. "In a way he is my protege. Then, too, he is my first

boy friend but not exactly friend; rather protege and friend combined. Sometimes, too, when he frightens

me, it seems that he is a bulldog I have taken for a plaything, like some of the 'frat' girls, and he is tugging

"He interests me, I suppose, like the bulldog. And there is much good in him, too; but there is much in him

that I would not like in in the other way. You see, I have been thinking. He swears, he smokes, he drinks,

he has fought with his fists (he has told me so, and he likes it; he says so). He is all that a man should not be

a man I would want for my " her voice sank very low "husband. Then he is too strong. My prince must be

tall, and slender, and dark a graceful, bewitching prince. No, there is no danger of my failing in love with

"But it is not that that I spoke about," her mother equivocated. "Have you thought about him? He is so

"It was to be expected," Mrs. Morse said gently. "How could it be otherwise with any one who knew you?"

"Olney hates me!" she exclaimed passionately. "And I hate Olney. I feel always like a cat when he is around.

I feel that I must be nasty to him, and even when I don't happen to feel that way, why, he's nasty to me,

anyway. But I am happy with Martin Eden. No one ever loved me before no man, I mean, in that way. And

it is sweet to be loved that way. You know what I mean, mother dear. It is sweet to feel that you are really

and truly a woman." She buried her face in her mother's lap, sobbing. "You think I am dreadful, I know, but I

Mrs. Morse was strangely sad and happy. Her childdaughter, who was a bachelor of arts, was gone; but in

her place was a woman daughter. The experiment had succeeded. The strange void in Ruth's nature had

been filled, and filled without danger or penalty. This rough sailorfellow had been the instrument, and,

"His hand trembles," Ruth was confessing, her face, for shame's sake, still buried. "It is most amusing and

ridiculous, but I feel sorry for him, too. And when his hands are too trembly, and his eyes too shiny, why, I

lecture him about his life and the wrong way he is going about it to mend it. But he worships me, I know. His

eyes and his hands do not lie. And it makes me feel grownup, the thought of it, the very thought of it; and I

feel that I am possessed of something that is by rights my own that makes me like the other girls and

and young women. And, then, too, I knew that I was not like them before, and I knew that it worried you.

You thought you did not let me know that dear worry of yours, but I did, and I wanted to 'to make good,' as

It was a holy hour for mother and daughter, and their eyes were wet as they talked on in the twilight, Ruth all

white innocence and frankness, her mother sympathetic, receptive, yet calmly explaining and guiding.

"He is four years younger than you," she said. "He has no place in the world. He has neither position nor

salary. He is impractical. Loving you, he should, in the name of common sense, be doing something that

would give him the right to marry, instead of paltering around with those stories of his and with childish

dreams. Martin Eden, I am afraid, will never grow up. He does not take to responsibility and a man's work in

the world like your father did, or like all our friends, Mr. Butler for one. Martin Eden, I am afraid, will never

be a moneyearner. And this world is so ordered that money is necessary to happiness oh, no, not these

swollen fortunes, but enough of money to permit of common comfort and decency. He he has never

"He has not breathed a word. He has not attempted to; but if he did, I would not let him, because, you see, I

"I am glad of that. I should not care to see my daughter, my one daughter, who is so clean and pure, love a

man like him. There are noble men in the world who are clean and true and manly. Wait for them. You will

find one some day, and you will love him and be loved by him, and you will be happy with him as your

father and I have been happy with each other. And there is one thing you must always carry in mind "

"I have thought about them," Ruth confessed, remembering the wanton thoughts that had vexed her in the

past, her face again red with maiden shame that she should be telling such things.

"And it is that, the children, that makes Mr. Eden impossible," Mrs. Morse went on incisively. "Their heritage

must be clean, and he is, I am afraid, not clean. Your father has told me of sailors' lives, and and you

Ruth pressed her mother's hand in assent, feeling that she really did understand, though her conception was of

"You know I do nothing without telling you," she began. " Only, sometimes you must ask me, like this

time. I wanted to tell you, but I did not know how. It is false modesty, I know it is that, but you can make it

easy for me. Sometimes, like this time, you must ask me, you must give me a chance."

"Why, mother, you are a woman, too!" she cried exultantly, as they stood up, catching her mother's hands and

standing erect, facing her in the twilight, conscious of a strangely sweet equality between them. "I should

never have thought of you in that way if we had not had this talk. I had to learn that I was a woman to know

"We are women together," her mother said, drawing her to her and kissing her. "We are women together," she

repeated, as they went out of the room, their arms around each other's waists, their hearts swelling with a new

"Our little girl has become a woman," Mrs. Morse said proudly to her husband an hour later.

"That means," he said, after a long look at his wife, "that means she is in love."

"No, but that she is loved," was the smiling rejoinder. "The experiment has succeeded. She is awakened at

"Then we'll have to get rid of him." Mr. Morse spoke briskly, in matteroffact, businesslike tones.

But his wife shook her head. "It will not be necessary. Ruth says he is going to sea in a few days. When he

comes back, she will not be here. We will send her to Aunt Clara's. And, besides, a year in the East, with the

The desire to write was stirring in Martin once more. Stories and poems were springing into spontaneous

creation in his brain, and he made notes of them against the future time when he would give them expression.

But he did not write. This was his little vacation; he had resolved to devote it to rest and love, and in both

matters he prospered. He was soon spilling over with vitality, and each day he saw Ruth, at the moment of

"Be careful," her mother warned her once again. "I am afraid you are seeing too much of Martin Eden."

But Ruth laughed from security. She was sure of herself, and in a few days he would be off to sea. Then, by

the time he returned, she would be away on her visit East. There was a magic, however, in the strength and

health of Martin. He, too, had been told of her contemplated Eastern trip, and he felt the need for haste. Yet

he did not know how to make love to a girl like Ruth. Then, too, he was handicapped by the possession of a

great fund of experience with girls and women who had been absolutely different from her. They had known

about love and life and flirtation, while she knew nothing about such things. Her prodigious innocence

appalled him, freezing on his lips all ardors of speech, and convincing him, in spite of himself, of his own

unworthiness. Also he was handicapped in another way. He had himself never been in love before. He had

liked women in that turgid past of his, and been fascinated by some of them, but he had not known what it

was to love them. He had whistled in a masterful, careless way, and they had come to him. They had been

diversions, incidents, part of the game men play, but a small part at most. And now, and for the first time, he

was a suppliant, tender and timid and doubting. He did not know the way of love, nor its speech, while he

In the course of getting acquainted with a varied world, whirling on through the ever changing phases of it, he

had learned a rule of conduct which was to the effect that when one played a strange game, he should let the

other fellow play first. This had stood him in good stead a thousand times and trained him as an observer as

well. He knew how to watch the thing that was strange, and to wait for a weakness, for a place of entrance, to

divulge itself. It was like sparring for an opening in fistfighting. And when such an opening came, he knew

So he waited with Ruth and watched, desiring to speak his love but not daring. He was afraid of shocking her,

and he was not sure of himself. Had he but known it, he was following the right course with her. Love came

into the world before articulate speech, and in its own early youth it had learned ways and means that it had

never forgotten. It was in this old, primitive way that Martin wooed Ruth. He did not know he was doing it at

first, though later he divined it. The touch of his hand on hers was vastly more potent than any word he could

utter, the impact of his strength on her imagination was more alluring than the printed poems and spoken

passions of a thousand generations of lovers. Whatever his tongue could express would have appealed, in

part, to her judgment; but the touch of hand, the fleeting contact, made its way directly to her instinct. Her

judgment was as young as she, but her instincts were as old as the race and older. They had been young when

love was young, and they were wiser than convention and opinion and all the newborn things. So her

judgment did not act. There was no call upon it, and she did not realize the strength of the appeal Martin

made from moment to moment to her lovenature. That he loved her, on the other hand, was as clear as day,

and she consciously delighted in beholding his lovemanifestations the glowing eyes with their tender

lights, the trembling hands, and the never failing swarthy flush that flooded darkly under his sunburn. She

even went farther, in a timid way inciting him, but doing it so delicately that he never suspected, and doing it

halfconsciously, so that she scarcely suspected herself. She thrilled with these proofs of her power that

proclaimed her a woman, and she took an Evelike delight in tormenting him and playing upon him.

Tonguetied by inexperience and by excess of ardor, wooing unwittingly and awkwardly, Martin continued

his approach by contact. The touch of his hand was pleasant to her, and something deliciously more than

pleasant. Martin did not know it, but he did know that it was not distasteful to her. Not that they touched

hands often, save at meeting and parting; but that in handling the bicycles, in strapping on the books of verse

they carried into the hills, and in conning the pages of books side by side, there were opportunities for hand to

stray against hand. And there were opportunities, too, for her hair to brush his cheek, and for shoulder to

touch shoulder, as they leaned together over the beauty of the books. She smiled to herself at vagrant

impulses which arose from nowhere and suggested that she rumple his hair; while he desired greatly, when

they tired of reading, to rest his head in her lap and dream with closed eyes about the future that was to be

theirs. On Sunday picnics at Shellmound Park and Schuetzen Park, in the past, he had rested his head on

many laps, and, usually, he had slept soundly and selfishly while the girls shaded his face from the sun and

looked down and loved him and wondered at his lordly carelessness of their love. To rest his head in a girl's

lap had been the easiest thing in the world until now, and now he found Ruth's lap inaccessible and

impossible. Yet it was right here, in his reticence, that the strength of his wooing lay. It was because of this

reticence that he never alarmed her. Herself fastidious and timid, she never awakened to the perilous trend of

their intercourse. Subtly and unaware she grew toward him and closer to him, while he, sensing the growing

Once he dared, one afternoon, when he found her in the darkened living room with a blinding headache.

"Nothing can do it any good," she had answered his inquiries. "And besides, I don't take headache powders.

"I can cure it, I think, and without drugs," was Martin's answer. "I am not sure, of course, but I'd like to try.

It's simply massage. I learned the trick first from the Japanese. They are a race of masseurs, you know. Then I

learned it all over again with variations from the Hawaiians. They call it LOMILOMI. It can accomplish

The question was perfunctory, and she knew what the answer would be. Then she lost herself in drowsy

contemplation of the soothing balm of his strength: Life poured from the ends of his fingers, driving the pain

before it, or so it seemed to her, until with the easement of pain, she fell asleep and he stole away.

"I slept until dinner," she said. "You cured me completely, Mr. Eden, and I don't know how to thank you."

He was warm, and bungling of speech, and very happy, as he replied to her, and there was dancing in his

mind, throughout the telephone conversation, the memory of Browning and of sickly Elizabeth Barrett. What

had been done could be done again, and he, Martin Eden, could do it and would do it for Ruth Morse. He

went back to his room and to the volume of Spencer's "Sociology" lying open on the bed. But he could not

read. Love tormented him and overrode his will, so that, despite all determination, he found himself at the

little inkstained table. The sonnet he composed that night was the first of a lovecycle of fifty sonnets which

was completed within two months. He had the "Lovesonnets from the Portuguese" in mind as he wrote, and

he wrote under the best conditions for great work, at a climacteric of living, in the throes of his own sweet

The many hours he was not with Ruth he devoted to the "Lovecycle," to reading at home, or to the public

readingrooms, where he got more closely in touch with the magazines of the day and the nature of their

policy and content. The hours he spent with Ruth were maddening alike in promise and in inconclusiveness.

It was a week after he cured her headache that a moonlight sail on Lake Merritt was proposed by Norman and

seconded by Arthur and Olney. Martin was the only one capable of handling a boat, and he was pressed into

service. Ruth sat near him in the stern, while the three young fellows lounged amidships, deep in a wordy

The moon had not yet risen, and Ruth, gazing into the starry vault of the sky and exchanging no speech with

Martin, experienced a sudden feeling of loneliness. She glanced at him. A puff of wind was heeling the boat

over till the deck was awash, and he, one hand on tiller and the other on mainsheet, was luffing slightly, at

the same time peering ahead to make out the nearlying north shore. He was unaware of her gaze, and she

watched him intently, speculating fancifully about the strange warp of soul that led him, a young man with

signal powers, to fritter away his time on the writing of stories and poems foredoomed to mediocrity and

Her eyes wandered along the strong throat, dimly seen in the starlight, and over the firmpoised head, and the

old desire to lay her hands upon his neck came back to her. The strength she abhorred attracted her. Her

feeling of loneliness became more pronounced, and she felt tired. Her position on the heeling boat irked her,

and she remembered the headache he had cured and the soothing rest that resided in him. He was sitting

beside her, quite beside her, and the boat seemed to tilt her toward him. Then arose in her the impulse to lean

against him, to rest herself against his strength a vague, halfformed impulse, which, even as she

considered it, mastered her and made her lean toward him. Or was it the heeling of the boat? She did not

know. She never knew. She knew only that she was leaning against him and that the easement and soothing

rest were very good. Perhaps it had been the boat's fault, but she made no effort to retrieve it. She leaned

lightly against his shoulder, but she leaned, and she continued to lean when he shifted his position to make it

It was a madness, but she refused to consider the madness. She was no longer herself but a woman, with a

woman's clinging need; and though she leaned ever so lightly, the need seemed satisfied. She was no longer

tired. Martin did not speak. Had he, the spell would have been broken. But his reticence of love prolonged it.

He was dazed and dizzy. He could not understand what was happening. It was too wonderful to be anything

but a delirium. He conquered a mad desire to let go sheet and tiller and to clasp her in his arms. His intuition

told him it was the wrong thing to do, and he was glad that sheet and tiller kept his hands occupied and

fended off temptation. But he luffed the boat less delicately, spilling the wind shamelessly from the sail so as

to prolong the tack to the north shore. The shore would compel him to go about, and the contact would be

broken. He sailed with skill, stopping way on the boat without exciting the notice of the wranglers, and

mentally forgiving his hardest voyages in that they had made this marvellous night possible, giving him

mastery over sea and boat and wind so that he could sail with her beside him, her dear weight against him on

When the first light of the rising moon touched the sail, illuminating the boat with pearly radiance, Ruth

moved away from him. And, even as she moved, she felt him move away. The impulse to avoid detection

was mutual. The episode was tacitly and secretly intimate. She sat apart from him with burning cheeks, while

the full force of it came home to her. She had been guilty of something she would not have her brothers see,

nor Olney see. Why had she done it? She had never done anything like it in her life, and yet she had been

moonlightsailing with young men before. She had never desired to do anything like it. She was overcome

with shame and with the mystery of her own burgeoning womanhood. She stole a glance at Martin, who was

busy putting the boat about on the other tack, and she could have hated him for having made her do an

immodest and shameful thing. And he, of all men! Perhaps her mother was right, and she was seeing too

much of him. It would never happen again, she resolved, and she would see less of him in the future. She

entertained a wild idea of explaining to him the first time they were alone together, of lying to him, of

mentioning casually the attack of faintness that had overpowered her just before the moon came up. Then she

remembered how they had drawn mutually away before the revealing moon, and she knew he would know it

In the days that swiftly followed she was no longer herself but a strange, puzzling creature, wilful over

judgment and scornful of selfanalysis, refusing to peer into the future or to think about herself and whither

she was drifting. She was in a fever of tingling mystery, alternately frightened and charmed, and in constant

bewilderment. She had one idea firmly fixed, however, which insured her security. She would not let Martin

speak his love. As long as she did this, all would be well. In a few days he would be off to sea. And even if he

did speak, all would be well. It could not be otherwise, for she did not love him. Of course, it would be a

painful half hour for him, and an embarrassing half hour for her, because it would be her first proposal. She

thrilled deliciously at the thought. She was really a woman, with a man ripe to ask for her in marriage. It was

a lure to all that was fundamental in her sex. The fabric of her life, of all that constituted her, quivered and

grew tremulous. The thought fluttered in her mind like a flameattracted moth. She went so far as to imagine

Martin proposing, herself putting the words into his mouth; and she rehearsed her refusal, tempering it with

kindness and exhorting him to true and noble manhood. And especially he must stop smoking cigarettes. She

would make a point of that. But no, she must not let him speak at all. She could stop him, and she had told

her mother that she would. All flushed and burning, she regretfully dismissed the conjured situation. Her first

proposal would have to be deferred to a more propitious time and a more eligible suitor.

Came a beautiful fall day, warm and languid, palpitant with the hush of the changing season, a California

Indian summer day, with hazy sun and wandering wisps of breeze that did not stir the slumber of the air.

Filmy purple mists, that were not vapors but fabrics woven of color, hid in the recesses of the hills. San

Francisco lay like a blur of smoke upon her heights. The intervening bay was a dull sheen of molten metal,

whereon sailing craft lay motionless or drifted with the lazy tide. Far Tamalpais, barely seen in the silver

haze, bulked hugely by the Golden Gate, the latter a pale gold pathway under the westering sun. Beyond, the

Pacific, dim and vast, was raising on its skyline tumbled cloudmasses that swept landward, giving warning

The erasure of summer was at hand. Yet summer lingered, fading and fainting among her hills, deepening the

purple of her valleys, spinning a shroud of haze from waning powers and sated raptures, dying with the calm

content of having lived and lived well. And among the hills, on their favorite knoll, Martin and Ruth sat side

by side, their heads bent over the same pages, he reading aloud from the lovesonnets of the woman who had

But the reading languished. The spell of passing beauty all about them was too strong. The golden year was

dying as it had lived, a beautiful and unrepentant voluptuary, and reminiscent rapture and content freighted

heavily the air. It entered into them, dreamy and languorous, weakening the fibres of resolution, suffusing the

face of morality, or of judgment, with haze and purple mist. Martin felt tender and melting, and from time to

time warm glows passed over him. His head was very near to hers, and when wandering phantoms of breeze

stirred her hair so that it touched his face, the printed pages swam before his eyes.

"I don't believe you know a word of what you are reading," she said once when he had lost his place.

He looked at her with burning eyes, and was on the verge of becoming awkward, when a retort came to his

"I don't know," she laughed frankly. "I've already forgotten. Don't let us read any more. The day is too

"It will be our last in the hills for some time," he announced gravely. "There's a storm gathering out there on

The book slipped from his hands to the ground, and they sat idly and silently, gazing out over the dreamy bay

with eyes that dreamed and did not see. Ruth glanced sidewise at his neck. She did not lean toward him. She

was drawn by some force outside of herself and stronger than gravitation, strong as destiny. It was only an

inch to lean, and it was accomplished without volition on her part. Her shoulder touched his as lightly as a

butterfly touches a flower, and just as lightly was the counterpressure. She felt his shoulder press hers, and a

tremor run through him. Then was the time for her to draw back. But she had become an automaton. Her

actions had passed beyond the control of her will she never thought of control or will in the delicious

madness that was upon her. His arm began to steal behind her and around her. She waited its slow progress in

a torment of delight. She waited, she knew not for what, panting, with dry, burning lips, a leaping pulse, and

a fever of expectancy in all her blood. The girdling arm lifted higher and drew her toward him, drew her

slowly and caressingly. She could wait no longer. With a tired sigh, and with an impulsive movement all her

own, unpremeditated, spasmodic, she rested her head upon his breast. His head bent over swiftly, and, as his

This must be love, she thought, in the one rational moment that was vouchsafed her. If it was not love, it was

too shameful. It could be nothing else than love. She loved the man whose arms were around her and whose

lips were pressed to hers. She pressed more, tightly to him, with a snuggling movement of her body. And a

moment later, tearing herself half out of his embrace, suddenly and exultantly she reached up and placed both

hands upon Martin Eden's sunburnt neck. So exquisite was the pang of love and desire fulfilled that she

Not a word had been spoken, and not a word was spoken for a long time. Twice he bent and kissed her, and

each time her lips met his shyly and her body made its happy, nestling movement. She clung to him, unable

to release herself, and he sat, half supporting her in his arms, as he gazed with unseeing eyes at the blur of the

great city across the bay. For once there were no visions in his brain. Only colors and lights and glows pulsed

there, warm as the day and warm as his love. He bent over her. She was speaking.

"From the first, the very first, the first moment I laid eye on you. I was mad for love of you then, and in all

the time that has passed since then I have only grown the madder. I am maddest, now, dear. I am almost a

"And I have been as blind as a bat!" he cried, a ring of vexation in his voice. "I never dreamed it until just

"I didn't mean that." She drew herself partly away and looked at him. "I meant I knew you loved almost from

"It came to me suddenly." She was speaking very slowly, her eyes warm and fluttery and melting, a soft flush

on her cheeks that did not go away. "I never knew until just now when you put your arms around me. And I

never expected to marry you, Martin, not until just now. How did you make me love you?"

"I don't know," he laughed, "unless just by loving you, for I loved you hard enough to melt the heart of a

"This is so different from what I thought love would be," she announced irrelevantly.

"I didn't think it would be like this." She was looking into his eyes at the moment, but her own dropped as she

He offered to draw her toward him again, but it was no more than a tentative muscular movement of the

girdling arm, for he feared that he might be greedy. Then he felt her body yielding, and once again she was

"What will my people say?" she queried, with sudden apprehension, in one of the pauses.

"Let me tell her," he volunteered valiantly. "I think your mother does not like me, but I can win her around. A

"Why, we'll have each other. But there's no danger not winning your mother to our marriage. She loves you

He felt like assuring her that mothers' hearts were not so easily broken, but instead he said, "And love is the

"Do you know, Martin, you sometimes frighten me. I am frightened now, when I think of you and of what

you have been. You must be very, very good to me. Remember, after all, that I am only a child. I never loved

"Nor I. We are both children together. And we are fortunate above most, for we have found our first love in

"But that is impossible!" she cried, withdrawing herself from his arms with a swift, passionate movement.

"Impossible for you. You have been a sailor, and sailors, I have heard, are are "

"Are addicted to having a wife in every port?" he suggested. "Is that what you mean?"

"But that is not love." He spoke authoritatively. "I have been in many ports, but I never knew a passing touch

of love until I saw you that first night. Do you know, when I said good night and went away, I was almost

"But you said we were children, and I said it was impossible, for you, and we have strayed away from the

"I said that I never loved anybody but you," he replied. "You are my first, my very first."

And to Martin Eden's supreme surprise, she burst into a storm of tears that took more kisses than one and

many caresses to drive away. And all the while there was running through his head Kipling's line: "AND

THE COLONEL'S LADY AND JUDY O'GRADY ARE SISTERS UNDER THEIR SKINS." It was true, he

decided; though the novels he had read had led him to believe otherwise. His idea, for which the novels were

responsible, had been that only formal proposals obtained in the upper classes. It was all right enough, down

whence he had come, for youths and maidens to win each other by contact; but for the exalted personages up

above on the heights to make love in similar fashion had seemed unthinkable. Yet the novels were wrong.

Here was a proof of it. The same pressures and caresses, unaccompanied by speech, that were efficacious

with the girls of the workingclass, were equally efficacious with the girls above the workingclass. They

were all of the same flesh, after all, sisters under their skins; and he might have known as much himself had

he remembered his Spencer. As he held Ruth in his arms and soothed her, he took great consolation in the

thought that the Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady were pretty much alike under their skins. It brought Ruth

closer to him, made her possible. Her dear flesh was as anybody's flesh, as his flesh. There was no bar to their

marriage. Class difference was the only difference, and class was extrinsic. It could be shaken off. A slave, he

had read, had risen to the Roman purple. That being so, then he could rise to Ruth. Under her purity, and

saintliness, and culture, and ethereal beauty of soul, she was, in things fundamentally human, just like Lizzie

Connolly and all Lizzie Connollys. All that was possible of them was possible of her. She could love, and

hate, maybe have hysterics; and she could certainly be jealous, as she was jealous now, uttering her last sobs

"Besides, I am older than you," she remarked suddenly, opening her eyes and looking up at him, "three years

"Hush, you are only a child, and I am forty years older than you, in experience," was his answer.

In truth, they were children together, so far as love was concerned, and they were as naive and immature in

the expression of their love as a pair of children, and this despite the fact that she was crammed with a

university education and that his head was full of scientific philosophy and the hard facts of life.

They sat on through the passing glory of the day, talking as lovers are prone to talk, marvelling at the wonder

of love and at destiny that had flung them so strangely together, and dogmatically believing that they loved to

a degree never attained by lovers before. And they returned insistently, again and again, to a rehearsal of their

first impressions of each other and to hopeless attempts to analyze just precisely what they felt for each other

The cloudmasses on the western horizon received the descending sun, and the circle of the sky turned to

rose, while the zenith glowed with the same warm color. The rosy light was all about them, flooding over

them, as she sang, "Goodby, Sweet Day." She sang softly, leaning in the cradle of his arm, her hands in his,

Mrs. Morse did not require a mother's intuition to read the advertisement in Ruth's face when she returned

home. The flush that would not leave the cheeks told the simple story, and more eloquently did the eyes,

"What has happened?" Mrs. Morse asked, having bided her time till Ruth had gone to bed.

For reply, her mother's arm went around her, and a hand was softly caressing her hair.

"He did not speak," she blurted out. "I did not intend that it should happen, and I would never have let him

"In the name of goodness, child, what are you babbling about?" Mrs. Morse was bewildered. "I don't think

"No, he didn't speak," Ruth explained. "He just loved me, that was all. I was as surprised as you are. He didn't

say a word. He just put his arm around me. And and I was not myself. And he kissed me, and I kissed him.

She paused, waiting with expectancy the benediction of her mother's kiss, but Mrs. Morse was coldly silent.

"It is a dreadful accident, I know," Ruth recommenced with a sinking voice. "And I don't know how you will

ever forgive me. But I couldn't help it. I did not dream that I loved him until that moment. And you must tell

"Would it not be better not to tell your father? Let me see Martin Eden, and talk with him, and explain. He

"No! no!" Ruth cried, starting up. "I do not want to be released. I love him, and love is very sweet. I am going

"We have other plans for you, Ruth, dear, your father and I oh, no, no; no man picked out for you, or

anything like that. Our plans go no farther than your marrying some man in your own station in life, a good

"We would not influence your choice in any way; but you are our daughter, and we could not bear to see you

make a marriage such as this. He has nothing but roughness and coarseness to offer you in exchange for all

that is refined and delicate in you. He is no match for you in any way. He could not support you. We have no

foolish ideas about wealth, but comfort is another matter, and our daughter should at least marry a man who

can give her that and not a penniless adventurer, a sailor, a cowboy, a smuggler, and Heaven knows what

"He wastes his time over his writing, trying to accomplish what geniuses and rare men with college

educations sometimes accomplish. A man thinking of marriage should be preparing for marriage. But not he.

As I have said, and I know you agree with me, he is irresponsible. And why should he not be? It is the way of

sailors. He has never learned to be economical or temperate. The spendthrift years have marked him. It is not

his fault, of course, but that does not alter his nature. And have you thought of the years of licentiousness he

inevitably has lived? Have you thought of that, daughter? You know what marriage means."

"I have thought." Ruth waited a long time for the thought to frame itself. "And it is terrible. It sickens me to

think of it. I told you it was a dreadful accident, my loving him; but I can't help myself. Could you help

loving father? Then it is the same with me. There is something in me, in him I never knew it was there until

today but it is there, and it makes me love him. I never thought to love him, but, you see, I do," she

They talked long, and to little purpose, in conclusion agreeing to wait an indeterminate time without doing

The same conclusion was reached, a little later that night, between Mrs. Morse and her husband, after she had

"It could hardly have come otherwise," was Mr. Morse's judgment. "This sailorfellow has been the only

man she was in touch with. Sooner or later she was going to awaken anyway; and she did awaken, and lo!

here was this sailorfellow, the only accessible man at the moment, and of course she promptly loved him, or

Mrs. Morse took it upon herself to work slowly and indirectly upon Ruth, rather than to combat her. There

"Let her see all she wants of him," was Mr. Morse's advice. "The more she knows him, the less she'll love

him, I wager. And give her plenty of contrast. Make a point of having young people at the house. Young

women and young men, all sorts of young men, clever men, men who have done something or who are doing

things, men of her own class, gentlemen. She can gauge him by them. They will show him up for what he is.

And after all, he is a mere boy of twentyone. Ruth is no more than a child. It is calf love with the pair of

So the matter rested. Within the family it was accepted that Ruth and Martin were engaged, but no

announcement was made. The family did not think it would ever be necessary. Also, it was tacitly understood

that it was to be a long engagement. They did not ask Martin to go to work, nor to cease writing. They did not

intend to encourage him to mend himself. And he aided and abetted them in their unfriendly designs, for

"I wonder if you'll like what I have done!" he said to Ruth several days later. "I've decided that boarding with

my sister is too expensive, and I am going to board myself. I've rented a little room out in North Oakland,

retired neighborhood and all the rest, you know, and I've bought an oilburner on which to cook."

Martin frowned inwardly at the citation of that worthy gentleman, and went on: "I put stamps on all my

manuscripts and started them off to the editors again. Then today I moved in, and tomorrow I start to

"A position!" she cried, betraying the gladness of her surprise in all her body, nestling closer to him, pressing

"I meant that I was going to work at my writing." Her face fell, and he went on hastily. "Don't misjudge me. I

am not going in this time with any iridescent ideas. It is to be a cold, prosaic, matteroffact business

proposition. It is better than going to sea again, and I shall earn more money than any position in Oakland can

"You see, this vacation I have taken has given me perspective. I haven't been working the life out of my

body, and I haven't been writing, at least not for publication. All I've done has been to love you and to think.

I've read some, too, but it has been part of my thinking, and I have read principally magazines. I have

generalized about myself, and the world, my place in it, and my chance to win to a place that will be fit for

you. Also, I've been reading Spencer's 'Philosophy of Style,' and found out a lot of what was the matter with

me or my writing, rather; and for that matter with most of the writing that is published every month in the

"But the upshot of it all of my thinking and reading and loving is that I am going to move to Grub Street.

I shall leave masterpieces alone and do hackwork jokes, paragraphs, feature articles, humorous verse, and

society verse all the rot for which there seems so much demand. Then there are the newspaper syndicates,

and the newspaper shortstory syndicates, and the syndicates for the Sunday supplements. I can go ahead and

hammer out the stuff they want, and earn the equivalent of a good salary by it. There are freelances, you

know, who earn as much as four or five hundred a month. I don't care to become as they; but I'll earn a good

living, and have plenty of time to myself, which I wouldn't have in any position."

"Then, I'll have my spare time for study and for real work. In between the grind I'll try my hand at

masterpieces, and I'll study and prepare myself for the writing of masterpieces. Why, I am amazed at the

distance I have come already. When I first tried to write, I had nothing to write about except a few paltry

experiences which I neither understood nor appreciated. But I had no thoughts. I really didn't. I didn't even

have the words with which to think. My experiences were so many meaningless pictures. But as I began to

add to my knowledge, and to my vocabulary, I saw something more in my experiences than mere pictures. I

retained the pictures and I found their interpretation. That was when I began to do good work, when I wrote

'Adventure,' 'Joy,' 'The Pot,' 'The Wine of Life,' 'The Jostling Street,' the 'Lovecycle,' and the 'Sea Lyrics.' I

shall write more like them, and better; but I shall do it in my spare time. My feet are on the solid earth, now.

Hack work and income first, masterpieces afterward. Just to show you, I wrote half a dozen jokes last night

for the comic weeklies; and just as I was going to bed, the thought struck me to try my hand at a triolet a

humorous one; and inside an hour I had written four. They ought to be worth a dollar apiece. Four dollars

"Of course it's all valueless, just so much dull and sordid plodding; but it is no more dull and sordid than

keeping books at sixty dollars a month, adding up endless columns of meaningless figures until one dies. And

furthermore, the hackwork keeps me in touch with things literary and gives me time to try bigger things."

"But what good are these biggerthings, these masterpieces?" Ruth demanded. "You can't sell them."

"All those you named, and which you say yourself are good you have not sold any of them. We can't get

"Then we'll get married on triolets that will sell," he asserted stoutly, putting his arm around her and drawing

"Listen to this," he went on in attempted gayety. "It's not art, but it's a dollar.

"He came in When I was out, To borrow some tin Was why he came in, And he went without; So I was in

The merry lilt with which he had invested the jingle was at variance with the dejection that came into his face

as he finished. He had drawn no smile from Ruth. She was looking at him in an earnest and troubled way.

"It may be a dollar," she said, "but it is a jester's dollar, the fee of a clown. Don't you see, Martin, the whole

thing is lowering. I want the man I love and honor to be something finer and higher than a perpetrator of

"Mr. Butler's all right," he interrupted. "It's only his indigestion I find fault with. But to save me I can't see

any difference between writing jokes or comic verse and running a type writer, taking dictation, or keeping

sets of books. It is all a means to an end. Your theory is for me to begin with keeping books in order to

become a successful lawyer or man of business. Mine is to begin with hackwork and develop into an able

"Why, your good work, what you yourself call good, you can't sell. You have tried, you know that, but the

"Give me time, dear," he pleaded. "The hackwork is only makeshift, and I don't take it seriously. Give me

two years. I shall succeed in that time, and the editors will be glad to buy my good work. I know what I am

saying; I have faith in myself. I know what I have in me; I know what literature is, now; I know the average

rot that is poured out by a lot of little men; and I know that at the end of two years I shall be on the highroad

to success. As for business, I shall never succeed at it. I am not in sympathy with it. It strikes me as dull, and

stupid, and mercenary, and tricky. Anyway I am not adapted for it. I'd never get beyond a clerkship, and how

could you and I be happy on the paltry earnings of a clerk? I want the best of everything in the world for you,

and the only time when I won't want it will be when there is something better. And I'm going to get it, going

to get all of it. The income of a successful author makes Mr. Butler look cheap. A 'bestseller' will earn

anywhere between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars sometimes more and sometimes less; but, as a rule,

"I had hoped and planned otherwise. I had thought, and I still think, that the best thing for you would be to

study shorthand you already know typewriting and go into father's office. You have a good mind, and I

That Ruth had little faith in his power as a writer, did not alter her nor diminish her in Martin's eyes. In the

breathing spell of the vacation he had taken, he had spent many hours in self analysis, and thereby learned

much of himself. He had discovered that he loved beauty more than fame, and that what desire he had for

fame was largely for Ruth's sake. It was for this reason that his desire for fame was strong. He wanted to be

great in the world's eyes; "to make good," as he expressed it, in order that the woman he loved should be

As for himself, he loved beauty passionately, and the joy of serving her was to him sufficient wage. And

more than beauty he loved Ruth. He considered love the finest thing in the world. It was love that had worked

the revolution in him, changing him from an uncouth sailor to a student and an artist; therefore, to him, the

finest and greatest of the three, greater than learning and artistry, was love. Already he had discovered that his

brain went beyond Ruth's, just as it went beyond the brains of her brothers, or the brain of her father. In spite

of every advantage of university training, and in the face of her bachelorship of arts, his power of intellect

overshadowed hers, and his year or so of selfstudy and equipment gave him a mastery of the affairs of the

All this he realized, but it did not affect his love for her, nor her love for him. Love was too fine and noble,

and he was too loyal a lover for him to besmirch love with criticism. What did love have to do with Ruth's

divergent views on art, right conduct, the French Revolution, or equal suffrage? They were mental processes,

but love was beyond reason; it was superrational. He could not belittle love. He worshipped it. Love lay on

the mountaintops beyond the valleyland of reason. It was a sublimates condition of existence, the topmost

peak of living, and it came rarely. Thanks to the school of scientific philosophers he favored, he knew the

biological significance of love; but by a refined process of the same scientific reasoning he reached the

conclusion that the human organism achieved its highest purpose in love, that love must not be questioned,

but must be accepted as the highest guerdon of life. Thus, he considered the lover blessed over all creatures,

and it was a delight to him to think of "God's own mad lover," rising above the things of earth, above wealth

and judgment, public opinion and applause, rising above life itself and "dying on a kiss."

Much of this Martin had already reasoned out, and some of it he reasoned out later. In the meantime he

worked, taking no recreation except when he went to see Ruth, and living like a Spartan. He paid two dollars

and a half a month rent for the small room he got from his Portuguese landlady, Maria Silva, a virago and a

widow, hard working and harsher tempered, rearing her large brood of children somehow, and drowning her

sorrow and fatigue at irregular intervals in a gallon of the thin, sour wine that she bought from the corner

grocery and saloon for fifteen cents. From detesting her and her foul tongue at first, Martin grew to admire

her as he observed the brave fight she made. There were but four rooms in the little house three, when

Martin's was subtracted. One of these, the parlor, gay with an ingrain carpet and dolorous with a funeral card

and a deathpicture of one of her numerous departed babes, was kept strictly for company. The blinds were

always down, and her barefooted tribe was never permitted to enter the sacred precinct save on state

occasions. She cooked, and all ate, in the kitchen, where she likewise washed, starched, and ironed clothes on

all days of the week except Sunday; for her income came largely from taking in washing from her more

prosperous neighbors. Remained the bedroom, small as the one occupied by Martin, into which she and her

seven little ones crowded and slept. It was an everlasting miracle to Martin how it was accomplished, and

from her side of the thin partition he heard nightly every detail of the going to bed, the squalls and squabbles,

the soft chattering, and the sleepy, twittering noises as of birds. Another source of income to Maria were her

cows, two of them, which she milked night and morning and which gained a surreptitious livelihood from

vacant lots and the grass that grew on either side the public side walks, attended always by one or more of her

ragged boys, whose watchful guardianship consisted chiefly in keeping their eyes out for the poundmen.

In his own small room Martin lived, slept, studied, wrote, and kept house. Before the one window, looking

out on the tiny front porch, was the kitchen table that served as desk, library, and type writing stand. The

bed, against the rear wall, occupied twothirds of the total space of the room. The table was flanked on one

side by a gaudy bureau, manufactured for profit and not for service, the thin veneer of which was shed day by

day. This bureau stood in the corner, and in the opposite corner, on the table's other flank, was the kitchen

the oilstove on a drygoods box, inside of which were dishes and cooking utensils, a shelf on the wall for

provisions, and a bucket of water on the floor. Martin had to carry his water from the kitchen sink, there

being no tap in his room. On days when there was much steam to his cooking, the harvest of veneer from the

bureau was unusually generous. Over the bed, hoisted by a tackle to the ceiling, was his bicycle. At first he

had tried to keep it in the basement; but the tribe of Silva, loosening the bearings and puncturing the tires, had

driven him out. Next he attempted the tiny front porch, until a howling southeaster drenched the wheel a

A small closet contained his clothes and the books he had accumulated and for which there was no room on

the table or under the table. Hand in hand with reading, he had developed the habit of making notes, and so

copiously did he make them that there would have been no existence for him in the confined quarters had he

not rigged several clotheslines across the room on which the notes were hung. Even so, he was crowded

until navigating the room was a difficult task. He could not open the door without first closing the closet

door, and VICE VERSA. It was impossible for him anywhere to traverse the room in a straight line. To go

from the door to the head of the bed was a zigzag course that he was never quite able to accomplish in the

dark without collisions. Having settled the difficulty of the conflicting doors, he had to steer sharply to the

right to avoid the kitchen. Next, he sheered to the left, to escape the foot of the bed; but this sheer, if too

generous, brought him against the corner of the table. With a sudden twitch and lurch, he terminated the sheer

and bore off to the right along a sort of canal, one bank of which was the bed, the other the table. When the

one chair in the room was at its usual place before the table, the canal was unnavigable. When the chair was

not in use, it reposed on top of the bed, though sometimes he sat on the chair when cooking, reading a book

while the water boiled, and even becoming skilful enough to manage a paragraph or two while steak was

frying. Also, so small was the little corner that constituted the kitchen, he was able, sitting down, to reach

anything he needed. In fact, it was expedient to cook sitting down; standing up, he was too often in his own

In conjunction with a perfect stomach that could digest anything, he possessed knowledge of the various

foods that were at the same time nutritious and cheap. Peasoup was a common article in his diet, as well as

potatoes and beans, the latter large and brown and cooked in Mexican style. Rice, cooked as American

housewives never cook it and can never learn to cook it, appeared on Martin's table at least once a day. Dried

fruits were less expensive than fresh, and he had usually a pot of them, cooked and ready at hand, for they

took the place of butter on his bread. Occasionally he graced his table with a piece of roundsteak, or with a

soupbone. Coffee, without cream or milk, he had twice a day, in the evening substituting tea; but both

There was need for him to be economical. His vacation had consumed nearly all he had earned in the laundry,

and he was so far from his market that weeks must elapse before he could hope for the first returns from his

hackwork. Except at such times as he saw Ruth, or dropped in to see his sister Gertude, he lived a recluse, in

each day accomplishing at least three days' labor of ordinary men. He slept a scant five hours, and only one

with a constitution of iron could have held himself down, as Martin did, day after day, to nineteen

consecutive hours of toil. He never lost a moment. On the lookingglass were lists of definitions and

pronunciations; when shaving, or dressing, or combing his hair, he conned these lists over. Similar lists were

on the wall over the oilstove, and they were similarly conned while he was engaged in cooking or in

washing the dishes. New lists continually displaced the old ones. Every strange or partly familiar word

encountered in his reading was immediately jotted down, and later, when a sufficient number had been

accumulated, were typed and pinned to the wall or looking glass. He even carried them in his pockets, and

reviewed them at odd moments on the street, or while waiting in butcher shop or grocery to be served.

He went farther in the matter. Reading the works of men who had arrived, he noted every result achieved by

them, and worked out the tricks by which they had been achieved the tricks of narrative, of exposition, of

style, the points of view, the contrasts, the epigrams; and of all these he made lists for study. He did not ape.

He sought principles. He drew up lists of effective and fetching mannerisms, till out of many such, culled

from many writers, he was able to induce the general principle of mannerism, and, thus equipped, to cast

about for new and original ones of his own, and to weigh and measure and appraise them properly. In similar

manner he collected lists of strong phrases, the phrases of living language, phrases that bit like acid and

scorched like flame, or that glowed and were mellow and luscious in the midst of the arid desert of common

speech. He sought always for the principle that lay behind and beneath. He wanted to know how the thing

was done; after that he could do it for himself. He was not content with the fair face of beauty. He dissected

beauty in his crowded little bedroom laboratory, where cooking smells alternated with the outer bedlam of the

Silva tribe; and, having dissected and learned the anatomy of beauty, he was nearer being able to create

He was so made that he could work only with understanding. He could not work blindly, in the dark, ignorant

of what he was producing and trusting to chance and the star of his genius that the effect produced should be

right and fine. He had no patience with chance effects. He wanted to know why and how. His was deliberate

creative genius, and, before he began a story or poem, the thing itself was already alive in his brain, with the

end in sight and the means of realizing that end in his conscious possession. Otherwise the effort was doomed

to failure. On the other hand, he appreciated the chance effects in words and phrases that came lightly and

easily into his brain, and that later stood all tests of beauty and power and developed tremendous and

incommunicable connotations. Before such he bowed down and marvelled, knowing that they were beyond

the deliberate creation of any man. And no matter how much he dissected beauty in search of the principles

that underlie beauty and make beauty possible, he was aware, always, of the innermost mystery of beauty to

which he did not penetrate and to which no man had ever penetrated. He knew full well, from his Spencer,

that man can never attain ultimate knowledge of anything, and that the mystery of beauty was no less than

that of life nay, more that the fibres of beauty and life were intertwisted, and that he himself was but a bit of

In fact, it was when filled with these thoughts that he wrote his essay entitled "Stardust," in which he had his

fling, not at the principles of criticism, but at the principal critics. It was brilliant, deep, philosophical, and

deliciously touched with laughter. Also it was promptly rejected by the magazines as often as it was

submitted. But having cleared his mind of it, he went serenely on his way. It was a habit he developed, of

incubating and maturing his thought upon a subject, and of then rushing into the typewriter with it. That it

did not see print was a matter a small moment with him. The writing of it was the culminating act of a long

mental process, the drawing together of scattered threads of thought and the final generalizing upon all the

data with which his mind was burdened. To write such an article was the conscious effort by which he freed

his mind and made it ready for fresh material and problems. It was in a way akin to that common habit of

men and women troubled by real or fancied grievances, who periodically and volubly break their

The weeks passed. Martin ran out of money, and publishers' checks were far away as ever. All his important

manuscripts had come back and been started out again, and his hackwork fared no better. His little kitchen

was no longer graced with a variety of foods. Caught in the pinch with a part sack of rice and a few pounds of

dried apricots, rice and apricots was his menu three times a day for five days handrunning. Then he startled

to realize on his credit. The Portuguese grocer, to whom he had hitherto paid cash, called a halt when Martin's

And Martin could reply nothing. There was no way of explaining. It was not true business principle to allow

credit to a strong bodied young fellow of the workingclass who was too lazy to work.

"You catcha da job, I let you have mora da grub," the grocer assured Martin. "No job, no grub. Thata da

business." And then, to show that it was purely business foresight and not prejudice, "Hava da drink on da

So Martin drank, in his easy way, to show that he was good friends with the house, and then went supperless

The fruit store, where Martin had bought his vegetables, was run by an American whose business principles

were so weak that he let Martin run a bill of five dollars before stopping his credit. The baker stopped at two

dollars, and the butcher at four dollars. Martin added his debts and found that he was possessed of a total

credit in all the world of fourteen dollars and eightyfive cents. He was up with his typewriter rent, but he

estimated that he could get two months' credit on that, which would be eight dollars. When that occurred, he

The last purchase from the fruit store had been a sack of potatoes, and for a week he had potatoes, and

nothing but potatoes, three times a day. An occasional dinner at Ruth's helped to keep strength in his body,

though he found it tantalizing enough to refuse further helping when his appetite was raging at sight of so

much food spread before it. Now and again, though afflicted with secret shame, he dropped in at his sister's at

Day by day he worked on, and day by day the postman delivered to him rejected manuscripts. He had no

money for stamps, so the manuscripts accumulated in a heap under the table. Came a day when for forty

hours he had not tasted food. He could not hope for a meal at Ruth's, for she was away to San Rafael on a two

weeks' visit; and for very shame's sake he could not go to his sister's. To cap misfortune, the postman, in his

afternoon round, brought him five returned manuscripts. Then it was that Martin wore his overcoat down into

Oakland, and came back without it, but with five dollars tinkling in his pocket. He paid a dollar each on

account to the four tradesmen, and in his kitchen fried steak and onions, made coffee, and stewed a large pot

of prunes. And having dined, he sat down at his tabledesk and completed before midnight an essay which he

entitled "The Dignity of Usury." Having typed it out, he flung it under the table, for there had been nothing

Later on he pawned his watch, and still later his wheel, reducing the amount available for food by putting

stamps on all his manuscripts and sending them out. He was disappointed with his hackwork. Nobody cared

to buy. He compared it with what he found in the newspapers, weeklies, and cheap magazines, and decided

that his was better, far better, than the average; yet it would not sell. Then he discovered that most of the

newspapers printed a great deal of what was called "plate" stuff, and he got the address of the association that

furnished it. His own work that he sent in was returned, along with a stereotyped slip informing him that the

In one of the great juvenile periodicals he noted whole columns of incident and anecdote. Here was a chance.

His paragraphs were returned, and though he tried repeatedly he never succeeded in placing one. Later on,

when it no longer mattered, he learned that the associate editors and subeditors augmented their salaries by

supplying those paragraphs themselves. The comic weeklies returned his jokes and humorous verse, and the

light society verse he wrote for the large magazines found no abidingplace. Then there was the newspaper

storiette. He knew that he could write better ones than were published. Managing to obtain the addresses of

two newspaper syndicates, he deluged them with storiettes. When he had written twenty and failed to place

one of them, he ceased. And yet, from day to day, he read storiettes in the dailies and weeklies, scores and

scores of storiettes, not one of which would compare with his. In his despondency, he concluded that he had

no judgment whatever, that he was hypnotized by what he wrote, and that he was a self deluded pretender.

The inhuman editorial machine ran smoothly as ever. He folded the stamps in with his manuscript, dropped it

into the letterbox, and from three weeks to a month afterward the postman came up the steps and handed

him the manuscript. Surely there were no live, warm editors at the other end. It was all wheels and cogs and

oilcups a clever mechanism operated by automatons. He reached stages of despair wherein he doubted if

editors existed at all. He had never received a sign of the existence of one, and from absence of judgment in

rejecting all he wrote it seemed plausible that editors were myths, manufactured and maintained by office

The hours he spent with Ruth were the only happy ones he had, and they were not all happy. He was afflicted

always with a gnawing restlessness, more tantalizing than in the old days before he possessed her love; for

now that he did possess her love, the possession of her was far away as ever. He had asked for two years;

time was flying, and he was achieving nothing. Again, he was always conscious of the fact that she did not

approve what he was doing. She did not say so directly. Yet indirectly she let him understand it as clearly and

definitely as she could have spoken it. It was not resentment with her, but disapproval; though less

sweetnatured women might have resented where she was no more than disappointed. Her disappointment

lay in that this man she had taken to mould, refused to be moulded. To a certain extent she had found his clay

plastic, then it had developed stubbornness, declining to be shaped in the image of her father or of Mr. Butler.

What was great and strong in him, she missed, or, worse yet, misunderstood. This man, whose clay was so

plastic that he could live in any number of pigeonholes of human existence, she thought wilful and most

obstinate because she could not shape him to live in her pigeonhole, which was the only one she knew. She

could not follow the flights of his mind, and when his brain got beyond her, she deemed him erratic. Nobody

else's brain ever got beyond her. She could always follow her father and mother, her brothers and Olney;

wherefore, when she could not follow Martin, she believed the fault lay with him. It was the old tragedy of

"You worship at the shrine of the established," he told her once, in a discussion they had over Praps and

Vanderwater. "I grant that as authorities to quote they are most excellent the two foremost literary critics in

the United States. Every school teacher in the land looks up to Vanderwater as the Dean of American

criticism. Yet I read his stuff, and it seems to me the perfection of the felicitous expression of the inane. Why,

he is no more than a ponderous bromide, thanks to Gelett Burgess. And Praps is no better. His 'Hemlock

Mosses,' for instance is beautifully written. Not a comma is out of place; and the tone ah! is lofty, so

lofty. He is the bestpaid critic in the United States. Though, Heaven forbid! he's not a critic at all. They do

"But the point is, they sound the popular note, and they sound it so beautifully and morally and contentedly.

Their reviews remind me of a British Sunday. They are the popular mouthpieces. They back up your

professors of English, and your professors of English back them up. And there isn't an original idea in any of

their skulls. They know only the established, in fact, they are the established. They are weak minded, and

the established impresses itself upon them as easily as the name of the brewery is impressed on a beer bottle.

And their function is to catch all the young fellows attending the university, to drive out of their minds any

glimmering originality that may chance to be there, and to put upon them the stamp of the established."

"I think I am nearer the truth," she replied, "when I stand by the established, than you are, raging around like

"It was the missionary who did the image breaking," he laughed. "And unfortunately, all the missionaries are

off among the heathen, so there are none left at home to break those old images, Mr. Vanderwater and Mr.

He shook his head emphatically. "No; the science professors should live. They're really great. But it would be

a good deed to break the heads of ninetenths of the English professors little, microscopicminded

Which was rather severe on the professors, but which to Ruth was blasphemy. She could not help but

measure the professors, neat, scholarly, in fitting clothes, speaking in wellmodulated voices, breathing of

culture and refinement, with this almost indescribable young fellow whom somehow she loved, whose

clothes never would fit him, whose heavy muscles told of damning toil, who grew excited when he talked,

substituting abuse for calm statement and passionate utterance for cool selfpossession. They at least earned

good salaries and were yes, she compelled herself to face it were gentlemen; while he could not earn a

She did not weigh Martin's words nor judge his argument by them. Her conclusion that his argument was

wrong was reached unconsciously, it is true by a comparison of externals. They, the professors, were

right in their literary judgments because they were successes. Martin's literary judgments were wrong because

he could not sell his wares. To use his own phrase, they made good, and he did not make good. And besides,

it did not seem reasonable that he should be right he who had stood, so short a time before, in that same

living room, blushing and awkward, acknowledging his introduction, looking fearfully about him at the

bricabrac his swinging shoulders threatened to break, asking how long since Swinburne died, and

Unwittingly, Ruth herself proved his point that she worshipped the established. Martin followed the processes

of her thoughts, but forbore to go farther. He did not love her for what she thought of Praps and Vanderwater

and English professors, and he was coming to realize, with increasing conviction, that he possessed

brainareas and stretches of knowledge which she could never comprehend nor know existed.

In music she thought him unreasonable, and in the matter of opera not only unreasonable but wilfully

It was a night when he had taken her at the expense of a month's rigid economizing on food. After vainly

waiting for him to speak about it, herself still tremulous and stirred by what she had just seen and heard, she

"That was splendid too; that is, the orchestra was, though I'd have enjoyed it more if those jumpingjacks had

"But don't you like Barillo's voice?" Ruth asked. "He is next to Caruso, they say."

"Of course I liked him, and I liked Tetralani even better. Her voice is exquisite or at least I think so."

"But, but " Ruth stammered. "I don't know what you mean, then. You admire their voices, yet say they

"Precisely that. I'd give anything to hear them in concert, and I'd give even a bit more not to hear them when

the orchestra is playing. I'm afraid I am a hopeless realist. Great singers are not great actors. To hear Barillo

sing a love passage with the voice of an angel, and to hear Tetralani reply like another angel, and to hear it all

accompanied by a perfect orgy of glowing and colorful music is ravishing, most ravishing. I do not admit it.

I assert it. But the whole effect is spoiled when I look at them at Tetralani, five feet ten in her stocking feet

and weighing a hundred and ninety pounds, and at Barillo, a scant five feet four, greasyfeatured, with the

chest of a squat, undersized blacksmith, and at the pair of them, attitudinizing, clasping their breasts, flinging

their arms in the air like demented creatures in an asylum; and when I am expected to accept all this as the

faithful illusion of a lovescene between a slender and beautiful princess and a handsome, romantic, young

prince why, I can't accept it, that's all. It's rot; it's absurd; it's unreal. That's what's the matter with it. It's not

real. Don't tell me that anybody in this world ever made love that way. Why, if I'd made love to you in such

"But you misunderstand," Ruth protested. "Every form of art has its limitations." (She was busy recalling a

lecture she had heard at the university on the conventions of the arts.) "In painting there are only two

dimensions to the canvas, yet you accept the illusion of three dimensions which the art of a painter enables

him to throw into the canvas. In writing, again, the author must be omnipotent. You accept as perfectly

legitimate the author's account of the secret thoughts of the heroine, and yet all the time you know that the

heroine was alone when thinking these thoughts, and that neither the author nor any one else was capable of

hearing them. And so with the stage, with sculpture, with opera, with every art form. Certain irreconcilable

"Yes, I understood that," Martin answered. "All the arts have their conventions." (Ruth was surprised at his

use of the word. It was as if he had studied at the university himself, instead of being illequipped from

browsing at haphazard through the books in the library.) "But even the conventions must be real. Trees,

painted on flat cardboard and stuck up on each side of the stage, we accept as a forest. It is a real enough

convention. But, on the other hand, we would not accept a sea scene as a forest. We can't do it. It violates our

senses. Nor would you, or, rather, should you, accept the ravings and writhings and agonized contortions of

"But you don't hold yourself superior to all the judges of music?" she protested.

"No, no, not for a moment. I merely maintain my right as an individual. I have just been telling you what I

think, in order to explain why the elephantine gambols of Madame Tetralani spoil the orchestra for me. The

world's judges of music may all be right. But I am I, and I won't subordinate my taste to the unanimous

judgment of mankind. If I don't like a thing, I don't like it, that's all; and there is no reason under the sun why

I should ape a liking for it just because the majority of my fellowcreatures like it, or make believe they like

"But music, you know, is a matter of training," Ruth argued; "and opera is even more a matter of training.

"The very thing," he agreed. "And I consider I am fortunate in not having been caught when I was young. If I

had, I could have wept sentimental tears tonight, and the clownish antics of that precious pair would have

but enhanced the beauty of their voices and the beauty of the accompanying orchestra. You are right. It's

mostly a matter of training. And I am too old, now. I must have the real or nothing. An illusion that won't

convince is a palpable lie, and that's what grand opera is to me when little Barillo throws a fit, clutches

mighty Tetralani in his arms (also in a fit), and tells her how passionately he adores her."

Again Ruth measured his thoughts by comparison of externals and in accordance with her belief in the

established. Who was he that he should be right and all the cultured world wrong? His words and thoughts

made no impression upon her. She was too firmly intrenched in the established to have any sympathy with

revolutionary ideas. She had always been used to music, and she had enjoyed opera ever since she was a

child, and all her world had enjoyed it, too. Then by what right did Martin Eden emerge, as he had so recently

emerged, from his ragtime and workingclass songs, and pass judgment on the world's music? She was

vexed with him, and as she walked beside him she had a vague feeling of outrage. At the best, in her most

charitable frame of mind, she considered the statement of his views to be a caprice, an erratic and

uncalledfor prank. But when he took her in his arms at the door and kissed her good night in tender

loverfashion, she forgot everything in the outrush of her own love to him. And later, on a sleepless pillow,

she puzzled, as she had often puzzled of late, as to how it was that she loved so strange a man, and loved him

And next day Martin Eden cast hackwork aside, and at white heat hammered out an essay to which he gave

the title, "The Philosophy of Illusion." A stamp started it on its travels, but it was destined to receive many

Maria Silva was poor, and all the ways of poverty were clear to her. Poverty, to Ruth, was a word signifying a

notnice condition of existence. That was her total knowledge on the subject. She knew Martin was poor, and

his condition she associated in her mind with the boyhood of Abraham Lincoln, of Mr. Butler, and of other

men who had become successes. Also, while aware that poverty was anything but delectable, she had a

comfortable middleclass feeling that poverty was salutary, that it was a sharp spur that urged on to success

all men who were not degraded and hopeless drudges. So that her knowledge that Martin was so poor that he

had pawned his watch and overcoat did not disturb her. She even considered it the hopeful side of the

situation, believing that sooner or later it would arouse him and compel him to abandon his writing.

Ruth never read hunger in Martin's face, which had grown lean and had enlarged the slight hollows in the

cheeks. In fact, she marked the change in his face with satisfaction. It seemed to refine him, to remove from

him much of the dross of flesh and the too animal like vigor that lured her while she detested it. Sometimes,

when with her, she noted an unusual brightness in his eyes, and she admired it, for it made him appear more

the poet and the scholar the things he would have liked to be and which she would have liked him to be.

But Maria Silva read a different tale in the hollow cheeks and the burning eyes, and she noted the changes in

them from day to day, by them following the ebb and flow of his fortunes. She saw him leave the house with

his overcoat and return without it, though the day was chill and raw, and promptly she saw his cheeks fill out

slightly and the fire of hunger leave his eyes. In the same way she had seen his wheel and watch go, and after

Likewise she watched his toils, and knew the measure of the midnight oil he burned. Work! She knew that he

outdid her, though his work was of a different order. And she was surprised to behold that the less food he

had, the harder he worked. On occasion, in a casual sort of way, when she thought hunger pinched hardest,

she would send him in a loaf of new baking, awkwardly covering the act with banter to the effect that it was

better than he could bake. And again, she would send one of her toddlers in to him with a great pitcher of hot

soup, debating inwardly the while whether she was justified in taking it from the mouths of her own flesh and

blood. Nor was Martin ungrateful, knowing as he did the lives of the poor, and that if ever in the world there

On a day when she had filled her brood with what was left in the house, Maria invested her last fifteen cents

in a gallon of cheap wine. Martin, coming into her kitchen to fetch water, was invited to sit down and drink.

He drank her verygood health, and in return she drank his. Then she drank to prosperity in his undertakings,

and he drank to the hope that James Grant would show up and pay her for his washing. James Grant was a

journeymen carpenter who did not always pay his bills and who owed Maria three dollars.

Both Maria and Martin drank the sour new wine on empty stomachs, and it went swiftly to their heads.

Utterly differentiated creatures that they were, they were lonely in their misery, and though the misery was

tacitly ignored, it was the bond that drew them together. Maria was amazed to learn that he had been in the

Azores, where she had lived until she was eleven. She was doubly amazed that he had been in the Hawaiian

Islands, whither she had migrated from the Azores with her people. But her amazement passed all bounds

when he told her he had been on Maui, the particular island whereon she had attained womanhood and

married. Kahului, where she had first met her husband, he, Martin, had been there twice! Yes, she

remembered the sugar steamers, and he had been on them well, well, it was a small world. And Wailuku!

That place, too! Did he know the headluna of the plantation? Yes, and had had a couple of drinks with him.

And so they reminiscenced and drowned their hunger in the raw, sour wine. To Martin the future did not

seem so dim. Success trembled just before him. He was on the verge of clasping it. Then he studied the

deeplined face of the toilworn woman before him, remembered her soups and loaves of new baking, and

"You shall have them," he announced, while she nodded her head gravely. "But I mean a big wish, something

Her eyes sparkled goodnaturedly. He was choosing to make fun with her, Maria, with whom few made fun

"Alla right," she answered. "I thinka da hard. I lika da house, dis house all mine, no paya da rent, seven

"You shall have it," he granted, "and in a short time. Now wish the great wish. Make believe I am God, and I

say to you anything you want you can have. Then you wish that thing, and I listen."

"Well, den " She drew a big breath like a child, as she voiced to the uttermost all she cared to demand of

life. "I lika da have one milka ranch good milka ranch. Plenty cow, plenty land, plenty grass. I lika da have

near San Lean; my sister liva dere. I sella da milk in Oakland. I maka da plentee mon. Joe an' Nick no runna

da cow. Dey goa to school. Bimeby maka da good engineer, worka da railroad. Yes, I lika da milka ranch."

She nodded her head and touched her lips courteously to the wine glass and to the giver of the gift she knew

would never be given. His heart was right, and in her own heart she appreciated his intention as much as if

"No, Maria," he went on; "Nick and Joe won't have to peddle milk, and all the kids can go to school and wear

shoes the whole year round. It will be a firstclass milk ranch everything complete. There will be a house

to live in and a stable for the horses, and cowbarns, of course. There will be chickens, pigs, vegetables, fruit

trees, and everything like that; and there will be enough cows to pay for a hired man or two. Then you won't

have anything to do but take care of the children. For that matter, if you find a good man, you can marry and

And from such largess, dispensed from his future, Martin turned and took his one good suit of clothes to the

pawnshop. His plight was desperate for him to do this, for it cut him off from Ruth. He had no secondbest

suit that was presentable, and though he could go to the butcher and the baker, and even on occasion to his

sister's, it was beyond all daring to dream of entering the Morse home so disreputably apparelled.

He toiled on, miserable and wellnigh hopeless. It began to appear to him that the second battle was lost and

that he would have to go to work. In doing this he would satisfy everybody the grocer, his sister, Ruth, and

even Maria, to whom he owed a month's room rent. He was two months behind with his typewriter, and the

agency was clamoring for payment or for the return of the machine. In desperation, all but ready to surrender,

to make a truce with fate until he could get a fresh start, he took the civil service examinations for the

Railway Mail. To his surprise, he passed first. The job was assured, though when the call would come to

It was at this time, at the lowest ebb, that the smoothrunning editorial machine broke down. A cog must

have slipped or an oil cup run dry, for the postman brought him one morning a short, thin envelope. Martin

glanced at the upper lefthand corner and read the name and address of the TRANSCONTINENTAL

MONTHLY. His heart gave a great leap, and he suddenly felt faint, the sinking feeling accompanied by a

strange trembling of the knees. He staggered into his room and sat down on the bed, the envelope still

unopened, and in that moment came understanding to him how people suddenly fall dead upon receipt of

Of course this was good news. There was no manuscript in that thin envelope, therefore it was an acceptance.

He knew the story in the hands of the TRANSCONTINENTAL. It was "The Ring of Bells," one of his horror

stories, and it was an even five thousand words. And, since firstclass magazines always paid on acceptance,

there was a check inside. Two cents a word twenty dollars a thousand; the check must be a hundred dollars.

One hundred dollars! As he tore the envelope open, every item of all his debts surged in his brain $3.85 to

the grocer; butcher $4.00 flat; baker, $2.00; fruit store, $5.00; total, $14.85. Then there was room rent, $2.50;

another month in advance, $2.50; two months' typewriter, $8.00; a month in advance, $4.00; total, $31.85.

And finally to be added, his pledges, plus interest, with the pawnbroker watch, $5.50; overcoat, $5.50;

wheel, $7.75; suit of clothes, $5.50 (60 % interest, but what did it matter?) grand total, $56.10. He saw, as

if visible in the air before him, in illuminated figures, the whole sum, and the subtraction that followed and

that gave a remainder of $43.90. When he had squared every debt, redeemed every pledge, he would still

have jingling in his pockets a princely $43.90. And on top of that he would have a month's rent paid in

By this time he had drawn the single sheet of typewritten letter out and spread it open. There was no check.

He peered into the envelope, held it to the light, but could not trust his eyes, and in trembling haste tore the

envelope apart. There was no check. He read the letter, skimming it line by line, dashing through the editor's

praise of his story to the meat of the letter, the statement why the check had not been sent. He found no such

statement, but he did find that which made him suddenly wilt. The letter slid from his hand. His eyes went

lacklustre, and he lay back on the pillow, pulling the blanket about him and up to his chin.

Five dollars for "The Ring of Bells" five dollars for five thousand words! Instead of two cents a word, ten

words for a cent! And the editor had praised it, too. And he would receive the check when the story was

published. Then it was all poppycock, two cents a word for minimum rate and payment upon acceptance. It

was a lie, and it had led him astray. He would never have attempted to write had he known that. He would

have gone to work to work for Ruth. He went back to the day he first attempted to write, and was appalled

at the enormous waste of time and all for ten words for a cent. And the other high rewards of writers, that

he had read about, must be lies, too. His secondhand ideas of authorship were wrong, for here was the proof

The TRANSCONTINENTAL sold for twentyfive cents, and its dignified and artistic cover proclaimed it as

among the firstclass magazines. It was a staid, respectable magazine, and it had been published continuously

since long before he was born. Why, on the outside cover were printed every month the words of one of the

world's great writers, words proclaiming the inspired mission of the TRANSCONTINENTAL by a star of

literature whose first coruscations had appeared inside those selfsame covers. And the high and lofty,

heaveninspired TRANSCONTINENTAL paid five dollars for five thousand words! The great writer had

recently died in a foreign land in dire poverty, Martin remembered, which was not to be wondered at,

Well, he had taken the bait, the newspaper lies about writers and their pay, and he had wasted two years over

it. But he would disgorge the bait now. Not another line would he ever write. He would do what Ruth wanted

him to do, what everybody wanted him to do get a job. The thought of going to work reminded him of Joe

Joe, tramping through the land of nothingtodo. Martin heaved a great sigh of envy. The reaction of

nineteen hours a day for many days was strong upon him. But then, Joe was not in love, had none of the

responsibilities of love, and he could afford to loaf through the land of nothingtodo. He, Martin, had

something to work for, and go to work he would. He would start out early next morning to hunt a job. And he

would let Ruth know, too, that he had mended his ways and was willing to go into her father's office.

Five dollars for five thousand words, ten words for a cent, the market price for art. The disappointment of it,

the lie of it, the infamy of it, were uppermost in his thoughts; and under his closed eyelids, in fiery figures,

burned the "$3.85" he owed the grocer. He shivered, and was aware of an aching in his bones. The small of

his back ached especially. His head ached, the top of it ached, the back of it ached, the brains inside of it

ached and seemed to be swelling, while the ache over his brows was intolerable. And beneath the brows,

planted under his lids, was the merciless "$3.85." He opened his eyes to escape it, but the white light of the

room seemed to sear the balls and forced him to close his eyes, when the "$3.85" confronted him again.

Five dollars for five thousand words, ten words for a cent that particular thought took up its residence in his

brain, and he could no more escape it than he could the "$3.85" under his eyelids. A change seemed to come

over the latter, and he watched curiously, till "$2.00" burned in its stead. Ah, he thought, that was the baker.

The next sum that appeared was "$2.50." It puzzled him, and he pondered it as if life and death hung on the

solution. He owed somebody two dollars and a half, that was certain, but who was it? To find it was the task

set him by an imperious and malignant universe, and he wandered through the endless corridors of his mind,

opening all manner of lumber rooms and chambers stored with odds and ends of memories and knowledge as

he vainly sought the answer. After several centuries it came to him, easily, without effort, that it was Maria.

With a great relief he turned his soul to the screen of torment under his lids. He had solved the problem; now

he could rest. But no, the "$2.50" faded away, and in its place burned "$8.00." Who was that? He must go the

How long he was gone on this quest he did not know, but after what seemed an enormous lapse of time, he

was called back to himself by a knock at the door, and by Maria's asking if he was sick. He replied in a

muffled voice he did not recognize, saying that he was merely taking a nap. He was surprised when he noted

the darkness of night in the room. He had received the letter at two in the afternoon, and he realized that he

Then the "$8.00" began to smoulder under his lids again, and he returned himself to servitude. But he grew

cunning. There was no need for him to wander through his mind. He had been a fool. He pulled a lever and

made his mind revolve about him, a monstrous wheel of fortune, a merrygoround of memory, a revolving

sphere of wisdom. Faster and faster it revolved, until its vortex sucked him in and he was flung whirling

Quite naturally he found himself at a mangle, feeding starched cuffs. But as he fed he noticed figures printed

in the cuffs. It was a new way of marking linen, he thought, until, looking closer, he saw "$3.85" on one of

the cuffs. Then it came to him that it was the grocer's bill, and that these were his bills flying around on the

drum of the mangle. A crafty idea came to him. He would throw the bills on the floor and so escape paying

them. No sooner thought than done, and he crumpled the cuffs spitefully as he flung them upon an unusually

dirty floor. Ever the heap grew, and though each bill was duplicated a thousand times, he found only one for

two dollars and a half, which was what he owed Maria. That meant that Maria would not press for payment,

and he resolved generously that it would be the only one he would pay; so he began searching through the

castout heap for hers. He sought it desperately, for ages, and was still searching when the manager of the

hotel entered, the fat Dutchman. His face blazed with wrath, and he shouted in stentorian tones that echoed

down the universe, "I shall deduct the cost of those cuffs from your wages!" The pile of cuffs grew into a

mountain, and Martin knew that he was doomed to toil for a thousand years to pay for them. Well, there was

nothing left to do but kill the manager and burn down the laundry. But the big Dutchman frustrated him,

seizing him by the nape of the neck and dancing him up and down. He danced him over the ironing tables, the

stove, and the mangles, and out into the washroom and over the wringer and washer. Martin was danced

until his teeth rattled and his head ached, and he marvelled that the Dutchman was so strong.

And then he found himself before the mangle, this time receiving the cuffs an editor of a magazine was

feeding from the other side. Each cuff was a check, and Martin went over them anxiously, in a fever of

expectation, but they were all blanks. He stood there and received the blanks for a million years or so, never

letting one go by for fear it might be filled out. At last he found it. With trembling fingers he held it to the

light. It was for five dollars. "Ha! Ha!" laughed the editor across the mangle. "Well, then, I shall kill you,"

Martin said. He went out into the wash room to get the axe, and found Joe starching manuscripts. He tried to

make him desist, then swung the axe for him. But the weapon remained poised in midair, for Martin found

himself back in the ironing room in the midst of a snowstorm. No, it was not snow that was falling, but

checks of large denomination, the smallest not less than a thousand dollars. He began to collect them and sort

He looked up from his task and saw Joe standing before him juggling flatirons, starched shirts, and

manuscripts. Now and again he reached out and added a bundle of checks to the flying miscellany that soared

through the roof and out of sight in a tremendous circle. Martin struck at him, but he seized the axe and added

it to the flying circle. Then he plucked Martin and added him. Martin went up through the roof, clutching at

manuscripts, so that by the time he came down he had a large armful. But no sooner down than up again, and

a second and a third time and countless times he flew around the circle. From far off he could hear a childish

He recovered the axe in the midst of the Milky Way of checks, starched shirts, and manuscripts, and

prepared, when he came down, to kill Joe. But he did not come down. Instead, at two in the morning, Maria,

having heard his groans through the thin partition, came into his room, to put hot flatirons against his body

Martin Eden did not go out to hunt for a job in the morning. It was late afternoon before he came out of his

delirium and gazed with aching eyes about the room. Mary, one of the tribe of Silva, eight years old, keeping

watch, raised a screech at sight of his returning consciousness. Maria hurried into the room from the kitchen.

He shook his head. Eating was farthest from his desire, and he wondered that he should ever have been

"Grip," she answered. "Two or three days you alla da right. Better you no eat now. Bimeby plenty can eat,

Martin was not used to sickness, and when Maria and her little girl left him, he essayed to get up and dress.

By a supreme exertion of will, with rearing brain and eyes that ached so that he could not keep them open, he

managed to get out of bed, only to be left stranded by his senses upon the table. Half an hour later he

managed to regain the bed, where he was content to lie with closed eyes and analyze his various pains and

weaknesses. Maria came in several times to change the cold cloths on his forehead. Otherwise she left him in

peace, too wise to vex him with chatter. This moved him to gratitude, and he murmured to himself, "Maria,

It seemed a lifetime since he had received that letter from the TRANSCONTINENTAL, a lifetime since it

was all over and done with and a new page turned. He had shot his bolt, and shot it hard, and now he was

down on his back. If he hadn't starved himself, he wouldn't have been caught by La Grippe. He had been run

down, and he had not had the strength to throw off the germ of disease which had invaded his system. This

"What does it profit a man to write a whole library and lose his own life?" he demanded aloud. "This is no

place for me. No more literature in mine. Me for the countinghouse and ledger, the monthly salary, and the

Two days later, having eaten an egg and two slices of toast and drunk a cup of tea, he asked for his mail, but

"You read for me, Maria," he said. "Never mind the big, long letters. Throw them under the table. Read me

So Teresa Silva, aged nine, opened his letters and read them to him. He listened absently to a long dun from

the typewriter people, his mind busy with ways and means of finding a job. Suddenly he was shocked back

"'We offer you forty dollars for all serial rights in your story,'" Teresa slowly spelled out, "'provided you

He could see to read, now, and he was unaware of the pain of the action. It was the WHITE MOUSE that was

offering him forty dollars, and the story was "The Whirlpool," another of his early horror stories. He read the

letter through again and again. The editor told him plainly that he had not handled the idea properly, but that

it was the idea they were buying because it was original. If they could cut the story down onethird, they

He called for pen and ink, and told the editor he could cut the story down threethirds if he wanted to, and to

The letter despatched to the letterbox by Teresa, Martin lay back and thought. It wasn't a lie, after all. The

WHITE MOUSE paid on acceptance. There were three thousand words in "The Whirlpool." Cut down a

third, there would be two thousand. At forty dollars that would be two cents a word. Pay on acceptance and

two cents a word the newspapers had told the truth. And he had thought the WHITE MOUSE a thirdrater!

It was evident that he did not know the magazines. He had deemed the TRANSCONTINENTAL a firstrater,

and it paid a cent for ten words. He had classed the WHITE MOUSE as of no account, and it paid twenty

Well, there was one thing certain: when he got well, he would not go out looking for a job. There were more

stories in his head as good as "The Whirlpool," and at forty dollars apiece he could earn far more than in any

job or position. Just when he thought the battle lost, it was won. He had proved for his career. The way was

clear. Beginning with the WHITE MOUSE he would add magazine after magazine to his growing list of

patrons. Hackwork could be put aside. For that matter, it had been wasted time, for it had not brought him a

dollar. He would devote himself to work, good work, and he would pour out the best that was in him. He

wished Ruth was there to share in his joy, and when he went over the letters left lying on his bed, he found

one from her. It was sweetly reproachful, wondering what had kept him away for so dreadful a length of time.

He reread the letter adoringly, dwelling over her handwriting, loving each stroke of her pen, and in the end

And when he answered, he told her recklessly that he had not been to see her because his best clothes were in

pawn. He told her that he had been sick, but was once more nearly well, and that inside ten days or two weeks

(as soon as a letter could travel to New York City and return) he would redeem his clothes and be with her.

But Ruth did not care to wait ten days or two weeks. Besides, her lover was sick. The next afternoon,

accompanied by Arthur, she arrived in the Morse carriage, to the unqualified delight of the Silva tribe and of

all the urchins on the street, and to the consternation of Maria. She boxed the ears of the Silvas who crowded

about the visitors on the tiny front porch, and in more than usual atrocious English tried to apologize for her

appearance. Sleeves rolled up from soapflecked arms and a wet gunnysack around her waist told of the

task at which she had been caught. So flustered was she by two such grand young people asking for her

lodger, that she forgot to invite them to sit down in the little parlor. To enter Martin's room, they passed

through the kitchen, warm and moist and steamy from the big washing in progress. Maria, in her excitement,

jammed the bedroom and bedroomcloset doors together, and for five minutes, through the partly open door,

Ruth succeeded in veering right and left and right again, and in running the narrow passage between table and

bed to Martin's side; but Arthur veered too wide and fetched up with clatter and bang of pots and pans in the

corner where Martin did his cooking. Arthur did not linger long. Ruth occupied the only chair, and having

done his duty, he went outside and stood by the gate, the centre of seven marvelling Silvas, who watched him

as they would have watched a curiosity in a sideshow. All about the carriage were gathered the children

from a dozen blocks, waiting and eager for some tragic and terrible denouement. Carriages were seen on their

street only for weddings and funerals. Here was neither marriage nor death: therefore, it was something

Martin had been wild to see Ruth. His was essentially a love nature, and he possessed more than the average

man's need for sympathy. He was starving for sympathy, which, with him, meant intelligent understanding;

and he had yet to learn that Ruth's sympathy was largely sentimental and tactful, and that it proceeded from

gentleness of nature rather than from understanding of the objects of her sympathy. So it was while Martin

held her hand and gladly talked, that her love for him prompted her to press his hand in return, and that her

eyes were moist and luminous at sight of his helplessness and of the marks suffering had stamped upon his

But while he told her of his two acceptances, of his despair when he received the one from the

TRANSCONTINENTAL, and of the corresponding delight with which he received the one from the WHITE

MOUSE, she did not follow him. She heard the words he uttered and understood their literal import, but she

was not with him in his despair and his delight. She could not get out of herself. She was not interested in

selling stories to magazines. What was important to her was matrimony. She was not aware of it, however,

any more than she was aware that her desire that Martin take a position was the instinctive and preparative

impulse of motherhood. She would have blushed had she been told as much in plain, set terms, and next, she

might have grown indignant and asserted that her sole interest lay in the man she loved and her desire for him

to make the best of himself. So, while Martin poured out his heart to her, elated with the first success his

chosen work in the world had received, she paid heed to his bare words only, gazing now and again about the

For the first time Ruth gazed upon the sordid face of poverty. Starving lovers had always seemed romantic to

her, but she had had no idea how starving lovers lived. She had never dreamed it could be like this. Ever

her gaze shifted from the room to him and back again. The steamy smell of dirty clothes, which had entered

with her from the kitchen, was sickening. Martin must be soaked with it, Ruth concluded, if that awful

woman washed frequently. Such was the contagiousness of degradation. When she looked at Martin, she

seemed to see the smirch left upon him by his surroundings. She had never seen him unshaven, and the three

days' growth of beard on his face was repulsive to her. Not alone did it give him the same dark and murky

aspect of the Silva house, inside and out, but it seemed to emphasize that animallike strength of his which

she detested. And here he was, being confirmed in his madness by the two acceptances he took such pride in

telling her about. A little longer and he would have surrendered and gone to work. Now he would continue on

"Some of Maria's washing smells, I imagine," was the answer. "I am growing quite accustomed to them."

"I don't know, except that I smoke more than usual when I am lonely. And then, too, it's such a longstanding

"That's the fault of the tobacco. I can afford only the cheapest. But wait until I get that fortydollar check. I'll

use a brand that is not offensive even to the angels. But that wasn't so bad, was it, two acceptances in three

"No, for less than a week's work. Please pass me that book over on the far corner of the table, the account

book with the gray cover." He opened it and began turning over the pages rapidly. "Yes, I was right. Four

days for 'The Ring of Bells,' two days for 'The Whirlpool.' That's fortyfive dollars for a week's work, one

hundred and eighty dollars a month. That beats any salary I can command. And, besides, I'm just beginning.

A thousand dollars a month is not too much to buy for you all I want you to have. A salary of five hundred a

month would be too small. That fortyfive dollars is just a starter. Wait till I get my stride. Then watch my

"You smoke more than enough as it is, and the brand of tobacco will make no difference. It is the smoking

itself that is not nice, no matter what the brand may be. You are a chimney, a living volcano, a perambulating

She leaned toward him, entreaty in her eyes, and as he looked at her delicate face and into her pure, limpid

"All right, I won't," he cried. "I'll do anything you ask, dear love, anything; you know that."

A great temptation assailed her. In an insistent way she had caught glimpses of the large, easygoing side of

his nature, and she felt sure, if she asked him to cease attempting to write, that he would grant her wish. In the

swift instant that elapsed, the words trembled on her lips. But she did not utter them. She was not quite brave

enough; she did not quite dare. Instead, she leaned toward him to meet him, and in his arms murmured:

"You know, it is really not for my sake, Martin, but for your own. I am sure smoking hurts you; and besides,

She looked at him mischievously, though deep down she was already regretting that she had not preferred her

"Well, then, my first commandment is, Thou shalt not omit to shave every day. Look how you have scratched

And so it ended in caresses and lovelaughter. But she had made one point, and she could not expect to make

more than one at a time. She felt a woman's pride in that she had made him stop smoking. Another time she

would persuade him to take a position, for had he not said he would do anything she asked?

She left his side to explore the room, examining the clotheslines of notes overhead, learning the mystery of

the tackle used for suspending his wheel under the ceiling, and being saddened by the heap of manuscripts

under the table which represented to her just so much wasted time. The oilstove won her admiration, but on

"Why, you haven't anything to eat, you poor dear," she said with tender compassion. "You must be starving."

"I store my food in Maria's safe and in her pantry," he lied. "It keeps better there. No danger of my starving.

She had come back to his side, and she saw him double his arm at the elbow, the biceps crawling under his

shirtsleeve and swelling into a knot of muscle, heavy and hard. The sight repelled her. Sentimentally, she

disliked it. But her pulse, her blood, every fibre of her, loved it and yearned for it, and, in the old,

inexplicable way, she leaned toward him, not away from him. And in the moment that followed, when he

crushed her in his arms, the brain of her, concerned with the superficial aspects of life, was in revolt; while

the heart of her, the woman of her, concerned with life itself, exulted triumphantly. It was in moments like

this that she felt to the uttermost the greatness of her love for Martin, for it was almost a swoon of delight to

her to feel his strong arms about her, holding her tightly, hurting her with the grip of their fervor. At such

moments she found justification for her treason to her standards, for her violation of her own high ideals, and,

most of all, for her tacit disobedience to her mother and father. They did not want her to marry this man. It

shocked them that she should love him. It shocked her, too, sometimes, when she was apart from him, a cool

and reasoning creature. With him, she loved him in truth, at times a vexed and worried love; but love it

"This La Grippe is nothing," he was saying. "It hurts a bit, and gives one a nasty headache, but it doesn't

"Have you had that, too?" she queried absently, intent on the heavensent justification she was finding in his

And so, with absent queries, she led him on, till suddenly his words startled her.

He had had the fever in a secret colony of thirty lepers on one of the Hawaiian Islands.

"Because I didn't know," he answered. "I never dreamed of lepers. When I deserted the schooner and landed

on the beach, I headed inland for some place of hiding. For three days I lived off guavas, OHIAapples, and

bananas, all of which grew wild in the jungle. On the fourth day I found the trail a mere foottrail. It led

inland, and it led up. It was the way I wanted to go, and it showed signs of recent travel. At one place it ran

along the crest of a ridge that was no more than a knifeedge. The trail wasn't three feet wide on the crest,

and on either side the ridge fell away in precipices hundreds of feet deep. One man, with plenty of

"It was the only way in to the hidingplace. Three hours after I found the trail I was there, in a little mountain

valley, a pocket in the midst of lava peaks. The whole place was terraced for taro patches, fruit trees grew

there, and there were eight or ten grass huts. But as soon as I saw the inhabitants I knew what I'd struck. One

"What did you do?" Ruth demanded breathlessly, listening, like any Desdemona, appalled and fascinated.

"Nothing for me to do. Their leader was a kind old fellow, pretty far gone, but he ruled like a king. He had

discovered the little valley and founded the settlement all of which was against the law. But he had guns,

plenty of ammunition, and those Kanakas, trained to the shooting of wild cattle and wild pig, were dead

shots. No, there wasn't any running away for Martin Eden. He stayed for three months."

"I'd have been there yet, if it hadn't been for a girl there, a halfChinese, quarterwhite, and

quarterHawaiian. She was a beauty, poor thing, and well educated. Her mother, in Honolulu, was worth a

million or so. Well, this girl got me away at last. Her mother financed the settlement, you see, so the girl

wasn't afraid of being punished for letting me go. But she made me swear, first, never to reveal the

hidingplace; and I never have. This is the first time I have even mentioned it. The girl had just the first signs

of leprosy. The fingers of her right hand were slightly twisted, and there was a small spot on her arm. That

"But weren't you frightened? And weren't you glad to get away without catching that dreadful disease?"

"Well," he confessed, "I was a bit shivery at first; but I got used to it. I used to feel sorry for that poor girl,

though. That made me forget to be afraid. She was such a beauty, in spirit as well as in appearance, and she

was only slightly touched; yet she was doomed to lie there, living the life of a primitive savage and rotting

"Because she must have loved you," Ruth said, still softly. "Candidly, now, didn't she?"

Martin's sunburn had been bleached by his work in the laundry and by the indoor life he was living, while the

hunger and the sickness had made his face even pale; and across this pallor flowed the slow wave of a blush.

But it seemed to him there was something metallic in her laughter, and that the light in her eyes was cold. On

the spur of the moment it reminded him of a gale he had once experienced in the North Pacific. And for the

moment the apparition of the gale rose before his eyes a gale at night, with a clear sky and under a full

moon, the huge seas glinting coldly in the moonlight. Next, he saw the girl in the leper refuge and

That was all of the incident, but he heard Ruth muffle a dry sob in her throat, and noticed that she turned her

face away to gaze out of the window. When she turned it back to him, it was composed, and there was no hint

"I'm such a silly," she said plaintively. "But I can't help it. I do so love you, Martin, I do, I do. I shall grow

more catholic in time, but at present I can't help being jealous of those ghosts of the past, and you know your

"It must be," she silenced his protest. "It could not be otherwise. And there's poor Arthur motioning me to

"There's some kind of a mixture, put up by the druggists, that helps men to stop the use of tobacco," she

Maria, with worshipful eyes that none the less were keen to note the texture of Ruth's garments and the cut of

them (a cut unknown that produced an effect mysteriously beautiful), saw her to the carriage. The crowd of

disappointed urchins stared till the carriage disappeared from view, then transferred their stare to Maria, who

had abruptly become the most important person on the street. But it was one of her progeny who blasted

Maria's reputation by announcing that the grand visitors had been for her lodger. After that Maria dropped

back into her old obscurity and Martin began to notice the respectful manner in which he was regarded by the

small fry of the neighborhood. As for Maria, Martin rose in her estimation a full hundred per cent, and had

the Portuguese grocer witnessed that afternoon carriagecall he would have allowed Martin an additional

The sun of Martin's good fortune rose. The day after Ruth's visit, he received a check for three dollars from a

New York scandal weekly in payment for three of his triolets. Two days later a newspaper published in

Chicago accepted his "Treasure Hunters," promising to pay ten dollars for it on publication. The price was

small, but it was the first article he had written, his very first attempt to express his thought on the printed

page. To cap everything, the adventure serial for boys, his second attempt, was accepted before the end of the

week by a juvenile monthly calling itself YOUTH AND AGE. It was true the serial was twentyone

thousand words, and they offered to pay him sixteen dollars on publication, which was something like

seventyfive cents a thousand words; but it was equally true that it was the second thing he had attempted to

But even his earliest efforts were not marked with the clumsiness of mediocrity. What characterized them

was the clumsiness of too great strength the clumsiness which the tyro betrays when he crushes butterflies

with battering rams and hammers out vignettes with a warclub. So it was that Martin was glad to sell his

early efforts for songs. He knew them for what they were, and it had not taken him long to acquire this

knowledge. What he pinned his faith to was his later work. He had striven to be something more than a mere

writer of magazine fiction. He had sought to equip himself with the tools of artistry. On the other hand, he

had not sacrificed strength. His conscious aim had been to increase his strength by avoiding excess of

strength. Nor had he departed from his love of reality. His work was realism, though he had endeavored to

fuse with it the fancies and beauties of imagination. What he sought was an impassioned realism, shot

through with human aspiration and faith. What he wanted was life as it was, with all its spiritgroping and

He had discovered, in the course of his reading, two schools of fiction. One treated of man as a god, ignoring

his earthly origin; the other treated of man as a clod, ignoring his heavensent dreams and divine

possibilities. Both the god and the clod schools erred, in Martin's estimation, and erred through too great

singleness of sight and purpose. There was a compromise that approximated the truth, though it flattered not

the school of god, while it challenged the brutesavageness of the school of clod. It was his story,

"Adventure," which had dragged with Ruth, that Martin believed had achieved his ideal of the true in fiction;

and it was in an essay, "God and Clod," that he had expressed his views on the whole general subject.

But "Adventure," and all that he deemed his best work, still went begging among the editors. His early work

counted for nothing in his eyes except for the money it brought, and his horror stories, two of which he had

sold, he did not consider high work nor his best work. To him they were frankly imaginative and fantastic,

though invested with all the glamour of the real, wherein lay their power. This investiture of the grotesque

and impossible with reality, he looked upon as a trick a skilful trick at best. Great literature could not reside

in such a field. Their artistry was high, but he denied the worthwhileness of artistry when divorced from

humanness. The trick had been to fling over the face of his artistry a mask of humanness, and this he had

done in the halfdozen or so stories of the horror brand he had written before he emerged upon the high

The three dollars he received for the triolets he used to eke out a precarious existence against the arrival of

the WHITE MOUSE check. He cashed the first check with the suspicious Portuguese grocer, paying a dollar

on account and dividing the remaining two dollars between the baker and the fruit store. Martin was not yet

rich enough to afford meat, and he was on slim allowance when the WHITE MOUSE check arrived. He was

divided on the cashing of it. He had never been in a bank in his life, much less been in one on business, and

he had a naive and childlike desire to walk into one of the big banks down in Oakland and fling down his

indorsed check for forty dollars. On the other hand, practical common sense ruled that he should cash it with

his grocer and thereby make an impression that would later result in an increase of credit. Reluctantly Martin

yielded to the claims of the grocer, paying his bill with him in full, and receiving in change a pocketful of

jingling coin. Also, he paid the other tradesmen in full, redeemed his suit and his bicycle, paid one month's

rent on the typewriter, and paid Maria the overdue month for his room and a month in advance. This left

In itself, this small sum seemed a fortune. Immediately on recovering his clothes he had gone to see Ruth,

and on the way he could not refrain from jingling the little handful of silver in his pocket. He had been so

long without money that, like a rescued starving man who cannot let the unconsumed food out of his sight,

Martin could not keep his hand off the silver. He was not mean, nor avaricious, but the money meant more

than so many dollars and cents. It stood for success, and the eagles stamped upon the coins were to him so

It came to him insensibly that it was a very good world. It certainly appeared more beautiful to him. For

weeks it had been a very dull and sombre world; but now, with nearly all debts paid, three dollars jingling in

his pocket, and in his mind the consciousness of success, the sun shone bright and warm, and even a

rainsquall that soaked unprepared pedestrians seemed a merry happening to him. When he starved, his

thoughts had dwelt often upon the thousands he knew were starving the world over; but now that he was

feasted full, the fact of the thousands starving was no longer pregnant in his brain. He forgot about them, and,

being in love, remembered the countless lovers in the world. Without deliberately thinking about it, MOTIFS

for lovelyrics began to agitate his brain. Swept away by the creative impulse, he got off the electric car,

He found a number of persons in the Morse home. Ruth's two girl cousins were visiting her from San

Rafael, and Mrs. Morse, under pretext of entertaining them, was pursuing her plan of surrounding Ruth with

young people. The campaign had begun during Martin's enforced absence, and was already in full swing. She

was making a point of having at the house men who were doing things. Thus, in addition to the cousins

Dorothy and Florence, Martin encountered two university professors, one of Latin, the other of English; a

young army officer just back from the Philippines, onetime school mate of Ruth's; a young fellow named

Melville, private secretary to Joseph Perkins, head of the San Francisco Trust Company; and finally of the

men, a live bank cashier, Charles Hapgood, a youngish man of thirtyfive, graduate of Stanford University,

member of the Nile Club and the Unity Club, and a conservative speaker for the Republican Party during

campaigns in short, a rising young man in every way. Among the women was one who painted portraits,

another who was a professional musician, and still another who possessed the degree of Doctor of Sociology

and who was locally famous for her social settlement work in the slums of San Francisco. But the women did

not count for much in Mrs. Morse's plan. At the best, they were necessary accessories. The men who did

"Don't get excited when you talk," Ruth admonished Martin, before the ordeal of introduction began.

He bore himself a bit stiffly at first, oppressed by a sense of his own awkwardness, especially of his

shoulders, which were up to their old trick of threatening destruction to furniture and ornaments. Also, he was

rendered selfconscious by the company. He had never before been in contact with such exalted beings nor

with so many of them. Melville, the bank cashier, fascinated him, and he resolved to investigate him at the

first opportunity. For underneath Martin's awe lurked his assertive ego, and he felt the urge to measure

himself with these men and women and to find out what they had learned from the books and life which he

Ruth's eyes roved to him frequently to see how he was getting on, and she was surprised and gladdened by

the ease with which he got acquainted with her cousins. He certainly did not grow excited, while being seated

removed from him the worry of his shoulders. Ruth knew them for clever girls, superficially brilliant, and she

could scarcely understand their praise of Martin later that night at going to bed. But he, on the other hand, a

wit in his own class, a gay quizzer and laughtermaker at dances and Sunday picnics, had found the making

of fun and the breaking of good natured lances simple enough in this environment. And on this evening

success stood at his back, patting him on the shoulder and telling him that he was making good, so that he

Later, Ruth's anxiety found justification. Martin and Professor Caldwell had got together in a conspicuous

corner, and though Martin no longer wove the air with his hands, to Ruth's critical eye he permitted his own

eyes to flash and glitter too frequently, talked too rapidly and warmly, grew too intense, and allowed his

aroused blood to redden his cheeks too much. He lacked decorum and control, and was in decided contrast to

But Martin was not concerned with appearances! He had been swift to note the other's trained mind and to

appreciate his command of knowledge. Furthermore, Professor Caldwell did not realize Martin's concept of

the average English professor. Martin wanted him to talk shop, and, though he seemed averse at first,

succeeded in making him do it. For Martin did not see why a man should not talk shop.

"It's absurd and unfair," he had told Ruth weeks before, "this objection to talking shop. For what reason under

the sun do men and women come together if not for the exchange of the best that is in them? And the best

that is in them is what they are interested in, the thing by which they make their living, the thing they've

specialized on and sat up days and nights over, and even dreamed about. Imagine Mr. Butler living up to

social etiquette and enunciating his views on Paul Verlaine or the German drama or the novels of

D'Annunzio. We'd be bored to death. I, for one, if I must listen to Mr. Butler, prefer to hear him talk about his

law. It's the best that is in him, and life is so short that I want the best of every man and woman I meet."

"There, you mistake," he had rushed on. "All persons in society, all cliques in society or, rather, nearly all

persons and cliques ape their betters. Now, who are the best betters? The idlers, the wealthy idlers. They do

not know, as a rule, the things known by the persons who are doing something in the world. To listen to

conversation about such things would mean to be bored, wherefore the idlers decree that such things are shop

and must not be talked about. Likewise they decree the things that are not shop and which may be talked

about, and those things are the latest operas, latest novels, cards, billiards, cocktails, automobiles, horse

shows, trout fishing, tunafishing, biggame shooting, yacht sailing, and so forth and mark you, these are

the things the idlers know. In all truth, they constitute the shoptalk of the idlers. And the funniest part of it is

that many of the clever people, and all the wouldbe clever people, allow the idlers so to impose upon them.

As for me, I want the best a man's got in him, call it shop vulgarity or anything you please."

And Ruth had not understood. This attack of his on the established had seemed to her just so much wilfulness

So Martin contaminated Professor Caldwell with his own earnestness, challenging him to speak his mind. As

Professor Caldwell shrugged his shoulders. "The honest taxpayer and the politician, you know. Sacramento

gives us our appropriations and therefore we kowtow to Sacramento, and to the Board of Regents, and to the

"Yes, that's clear; but how about you?" Martin urged. "You must be a fish out of the water."

"Few like me, I imagine, in the university pond. Sometimes I am fairly sure I am out of water, and that I

should belong in Paris, in Grub Street, in a hermit's cave, or in some sadly wild Bohemian crowd, drinking

claret, dagored they call it in San Francisco, dining in cheap restaurants in the Latin Quarter, and

expressing vociferously radical views upon all creation. Really, I am frequently almost sure that I was cut out

to be a radical. But then, there are so many questions on which I am not sure. I grow timid when I am face to

face with my human frailty, which ever prevents me from grasping all the factors in any problem human,

And as he talked on, Martin became aware that to his own lips had come the "Song of the Trade Wind":

He was almost humming the words, and it dawned upon him that the other reminded him of the trade wind,

of the Northeast Trade, steady, and cool, and strong. He was equable, he was to be relied upon, and withal

there was a certain bafflement about him. Martin had the feeling that he never spoke his full mind, just as he

had often had the feeling that the trades never blew their strongest but always held reserves of strength that

were never used. Martin's trick of visioning was active as ever. His brain was a most accessible storehouse of

remembered fact and fancy, and its contents seemed ever ordered and spread for his inspection. Whatever

occurred in the instant present, Martin's mind immediately presented associated antithesis or similitude which

ordinarily expressed themselves to him in vision. It was sheerly automatic, and his visioning was an unfailing

accompaniment to the living present. Just as Ruth's face, in a momentary jealousy had called before his eyes a

forgotten moonlight gale, and as Professor Caldwell made him see again the Northeast Trade herding the

white billows across the purple sea, so, from moment to moment, not disconcerting but rather identifying and

classifying, new memory visions rose before him, or spread under his eyelids, or were thrown upon the

screen of his consciousness. These visions came out of the actions and sensations of the past, out of things

and events and books of yesterday and last week a countless host of apparitions that, waking or sleeping,

So it was, as he listened to Professor Caldwell's easy flow of speech the conversation of a clever, cultured

man that Martin kept seeing himself down all his past. He saw himself when he had been quite the

hoodlum, wearing a "stiffrim" Stetson hat and a squarecut, doublebreasted coat, with a certain swagger to

the shoulders and possessing the ideal of being as tough as the police permitted. He did not disguise it to

himself, nor attempt to palliate it. At one time in his life he had been just a common hoodlum, the leader of a

gang that worried the police and terrorized honest, workingclass householders. But his ideals had changed.

He glanced about him at the wellbred, welldressed men and women, and breathed into his lungs the

atmosphere of culture and refinement, and at the same moment the ghost of his early youth, in stiffrim and

squarecut, with swagger and toughness, stalked across the room. This figure, of the corner hoodlum, he saw

For, after all, he had never found his permanent abiding place. He had fitted in wherever he found himself,

been a favorite always and everywhere by virtue of holding his own at work and at play and by his

willingness and ability to fight for his rights and command respect. But he had never taken root. He had fitted

in sufficiently to satisfy his fellows but not to satisfy himself. He had been perturbed always by a feeling of

unrest, had heard always the call of something from beyond, and had wandered on through life seeking it

until he found books and art and love. And here he was, in the midst of all this, the only one of all the

comrades he had adventured with who could have made themselves eligible for the inside of the Morse home.

But such thoughts and visions did not prevent him from following Professor Caldwell closely. And as he

followed, comprehendingly and critically, he noted the unbroken field of the other's knowledge. As for

himself, from moment to moment the conversation showed him gaps and open stretches, whole subjects with

which he was unfamiliar. Nevertheless, thanks to his Spencer, he saw that he possessed the outlines of the

field of knowledge. It was a matter only of time, when he would fill in the outline. Then watch out, he

thought 'ware shoal, everybody! He felt like sitting at the feet of the professor, worshipful and absorbent;

but, as he listened, he began to discern a weakness in the other's judgments a weakness so stray and elusive

that he might not have caught it had it not been ever present. And when he did catch it, he leapt to equality at

"I'll tell you where you are wrong, or, rather, what weakens your judgments," he said. "You lack biology. It

has no place in your scheme of things. Oh, I mean the real interpretative biology, from the ground up, from

the laboratory and the testtube and the vitalized inorganic right on up to the widest aesthetic and

Ruth was appalled. She had sat two lecture courses under Professor Caldwell and looked up to him as the

"Then I'll try to explain," he said. "I remember reading in Egyptian history something to the effect that

understanding could not be had of Egyptian art without first studying the land question."

"And it seems to me," Martin continued, "that knowledge of the land question, in turn, of all questions, for

that matter, cannot be had without previous knowledge of the stuff and the constitution of life. How can we

understand laws and institutions, religions and customs, without understanding, not merely the nature of the

creatures that made them, but the nature of the stuff out of which the creatures are made? Is literature less

human than the architecture and sculpture of Egypt? Is there one thing in the known universe that is not

subject to the law of evolution? Oh, I know there is an elaborate evolution of the various arts laid down, but

it seems to me to be too mechanical. The human himself is left out. The evolution of the tool, of the harp, of

music and song and dance, are all beautifully elaborated; but how about the evolution of the human himself,

the development of the basic and intrinsic parts that were in him before he made his first tool or gibbered his

first chant? It is that which you do not consider, and which I call biology. It is biology in its largest aspects.

"I know I express myself incoherently, but I've tried to hammer out the idea. It came to me as you were

talking, so I was not primed and ready to deliver it. You spoke yourself of the human frailty that prevented

one from taking all the factors into consideration. And you, in turn, or so it seems to me, leave out the

biological factor, the very stuff out of which has been spun the fabric of all the arts, the warp and the woof of

To Ruth's amazement, Martin was not immediately crushed, and that the professor replied in the way he did

struck her as forbearance for Martin's youth. Professor Caldwell sat for a full minute, silent and fingering his

"Do you know," he said at last, "I've had that same criticism passed on me once before by a very great man,

a scientist and evolutionist, Joseph Le Conte. But he is dead, and I thought to remain undetected; and now

you come along and expose me. Seriously, though and this is confession I think there is something in

your contention a great deal, in fact. I am too classical, not enough uptodate in the interpretative

branches of science, and I can only plead the disadvantages of my education and a temperamental

slothfulness that prevents me from doing the work. I wonder if you'll believe that I've never been inside a

physics or chemistry laboratory? It is true, nevertheless. Le Conte was right, and so are you, Mr. Eden, at

Ruth drew Martin away with her on a pretext; when she had got him aside, whispering:

"You shouldn't have monopolized Professor Caldwell that way. There may be others who want to talk with

"My mistake," Martin admitted contritely. "But I'd got him stirred up, and he was so interesting that I did not

think. Do you know, he is the brightest, the most intellectual, man I have ever talked with. And I'll tell you

something else. I once thought that everybody who went to universities, or who sat in the high places in

"I should say so. Whom do you want me to talk to now? Oh, say, bring me up against that cashierfellow."

Martin talked for fifteen minutes with him, nor could Ruth have wished better behavior on her lover's part.

Not once did his eyes flash nor his cheeks flush, while the calmness and poise with which he talked surprised

her. But in Martin's estimation the whole tribe of bank cashiers fell a few hundred per cent, and for the rest of

the evening he labored under the impression that bank cashiers and talkers of platitudes were synonymous

phrases. The army officer he found goodnatured and simple, a healthy, wholesome young fellow, content to

occupy the place in life into which birth and luck had flung him. On learning that he had completed two years

in the university, Martin was puzzled to know where he had stored it away. Nevertheless Martin liked him

"I really don't object to platitudes," he told Ruth later; "but what worries me into nervousness is the pompous,

smugly complacent, superior certitude with which they are uttered and the time taken to do it. Why, I could

give that man the whole history of the Reformation in the time he took to tell me that the UnionLabor Party

had fused with the Democrats. Do you know, he skins his words as a professional pokerplayer skins the

"I'm sorry you don't like him," was her reply. "He's a favorite of Mr. Butler's. Mr. Butler says he is safe and

honest calls him the Rock, Peter, and says that upon him any banking institution can well be built."

"I don't doubt it from the little I saw of him and the less I heard from him; but I don't think so much of

"Yes," Martin went on heartily, "I'm no more than a barbarian getting my first impressions of civilization.

"I liked them better than the other women. There's plenty of fun in them along with paucity of pretence."

"That socialsettlement woman is no more than a sociological poll parrot. I swear, if you winnowed her out

between the stars, like Tomlinson, there would be found in her not one original thought. As for the

portraitpainter, she was a positive bore. She'd make a good wife for the cashier. And the musician woman! I

don't care how nimble her fingers are, how perfect her technique, how wonderful her expression the fact is,

"Yes, she's undoubtedly gymnastic in the externals of music, but the intrinsic spirit of music is unguessed by

her. I asked her what music meant to her you know I'm always curious to know that particular thing; and

she did not know what it meant to her, except that she adored it, that it was the greatest of the arts, and that it

"I confess it. And if they were failures on shop, imagine my sufferings if they had discoursed on other

subjects. Why, I used to think that up here, where all the advantages of culture were enjoyed " He paused

for a moment, and watched the youthful shade of himself, in stiffrim and squarecut, enter the door and

swagger across the room. "As I was saying, up here I thought all men and women were brilliant and radiant.

But now, from what little I've seen of them, they strike me as a pack of ninnies, most of them, and ninety

percent of the remainder as bores. Now there's Professor Caldwell he's different. He's a man, every inch of

"Tell me about him," she urged. "Not what is large and brilliant I know those qualities; but whatever you

"Perhaps I'll get myself in a pickle." Martin debated humorously for a moment. "Suppose you tell me first. Or

"I attended two lecture courses under him, and I have known him for two years; that is why I am anxious for

"Bad impression, you mean? Well, here goes. He is all the fine things you think about him, I guess. At least,

he is the finest specimen of intellectual man I have met; but he is a man with a secret shame."

"Oh, no, no!" he hastened to cry. "Nothing paltry nor vulgar. What I mean is that he strikes me as a man who

has gone to the bottom of things, and is so afraid of what he saw that he makes believe to himself that he

never saw it. Perhaps that's not the clearest way to express it. Here's another way. A man who has found the

path to the hidden temple but has not followed it; who has, perhaps, caught glimpses of the temple and

striven afterward to convince himself that it was only a mirage of foliage. Yet another way. A man who could

have done things but who placed no value on the doing, and who, all the time, in his innermost heart, is

regretting that he has not done them; who has secretly laughed at the rewards for doing, and yet, still more

"I don't read him that way," she said. "And for that matter, I don't see just what you mean."

"It is only a vague feeling on my part," Martin temporized. "I have no reason for it. It is only a feeling, and

From the evening at Ruth's Martin brought away with him strange confusions and conflicting feelings. He

was disappointed in his goal, in the persons he had climbed to be with. On the other hand, he was encouraged

with his success. The climb had been easier than he expected. He was superior to the climb, and (he did not,

with false modesty, hide it from himself) he was superior to the beings among whom he had climbed with

the exception, of course, of Professor Caldwell. About life and the books he knew more than they, and he

wondered into what nooks and crannies they had cast aside their educations. He did not know that he was

himself possessed of unusual brain vigor; nor did he know that the persons who were given to probing the

depths and to thinking ultimate thoughts were not to be found in the drawing rooms of the world's Morses;

nor did he dream that such persons were as lonely eagles sailing solitary in the azure sky far above the earth

But success had lost Martin's address, and her messengers no longer came to his door. For twentyfive days,

working Sundays and holidays, he toiled on "The Shame of the Sun," a long essay of some thirty thousand

words. It was a deliberate attack on the mysticism of the Maeterlinck school an attack from the citadel of

positive science upon the wonderdreamers, but an attack nevertheless that retained much of beauty and

wonder of the sort compatible with ascertained fact. It was a little later that he followed up the attack with

two short essays, "The WonderDreamers" and "The Yardstick of the Ego." And on essays, long and short,

During the twentyfive days spent on "The Shame of the Sun," he sold hackwork to the extent of six dollars

and fifty cents. A joke had brought in fifty cents, and a second one, sold to a high grade comic weekly, had

fetched a dollar. Then two humorous poems had earned two dollars and three dollars respectively. As a result,

having exhausted his credit with the tradesmen (though he had increased his credit with the grocer to five

dollars), his wheel and suit of clothes went back to the pawnbroker. The type writer people were again

clamoring for money, insistently pointing out that according to the agreement rent was to be paid strictly in

Encouraged by his several small sales, Martin went back to hack work. Perhaps there was a living in it, after

all. Stored away under his table were the twenty storiettes which had been rejected by the newspaper

shortstory syndicate. He read them over in order to find out how not to write newspaper storiettes, and so

doing, reasoned out the perfect formula. He found that the newspaper storiette should never be tragic, should

never end unhappily, and should never contain beauty of language, subtlety of thought, nor real delicacy of

sentiment. Sentiment it must contain, plenty of it, pure and noble, of the sort that in his own early youth had

Having learned such precautions, Martin consulted "The Duchess" for tone, and proceeded to mix according

to formula. The formula consists of three parts: (1) a pair of lovers are jarred apart; (2) by some deed or event

they are reunited; (3) marriage bells. The third part was an unvarying quantity, but the first and second parts

could be varied an infinite number of times. Thus, the pair of lovers could be jarred apart by misunderstood

motives, by accident of fate, by jealous rivals, by irate parents, by crafty guardians, by scheming relatives,

and so forth and so forth; they could be reunited by a brave deed of the man lover, by a similar deed of the

woman lover, by change of heart in one lover or the other, by forced confession of crafty guardian, scheming

relative, or jealous rival, by voluntary confession of same, by discovery of some unguessed secret, by lover

storming girl's heart, by lover making long and noble selfsacrifice, and so on, endlessly. It was very fetching

to make the girl propose in the course of being reunited, and Martin discovered, bit by bit, other decidedly

piquant and fetching ruses. But marriage bells at the end was the one thing he could take no liberties with;

though the heavens rolled up as a scroll and the stars fell, the wedding bells must go on ringing just the same.

In quantity, the formula prescribed twelve hundred words minimum dose, fifteen hundred words maximum

Before he got very far along in the art of the storiette, Martin worked out half a dozen stock forms, which he

always consulted when constructing storiettes. These forms were like the cunning tables used by

mathematicians, which may be entered from top, bottom, right, and left, which entrances consist of scores of

lines and dozens of columns, and from which may be drawn, without reasoning or thinking, thousands of

different conclusions, all unchallengably precise and true. Thus, in the course of half an hour with his forms,

Martin could frame up a dozen or so storiettes, which he put aside and filled in at his convenience. He found

that he could fill one in, after a day of serious work, in the hour before going to bed. As he later confessed to

Ruth, he could almost do it in his sleep. The real work was in constructing the frames, and that was merely

He had no doubt whatever of the efficacy of his formula, and for once he knew the editorial mind when he

said positively to himself that the first two he sent off would bring checks. And checks they brought, for four

In the meantime he was making fresh and alarming discoveries concerning the magazines. Though the

TRANSCONTINENTAL had published "The Ring of Bells," no check was forthcoming. Martin needed it,

and he wrote for it. An evasive answer and a request for more of his work was all he received. He had gone

hungry two days waiting for the reply, and it was then that he put his wheel back in pawn. He wrote

regularly, twice a week, to the TRANSCONTINENTAL for his five dollars, though it was only semi

occasionally that he elicited a reply. He did not know that the TRANSCONTINENTAL had been staggering

along precariously for years, that it was a fourthrater, or tenthrater, without standing, with a crazy

circulation that partly rested on petty bullying and partly on patriotic appealing, and with advertisements that

were scarcely more than charitable donations. Nor did he know that the TRANSCONTINENTAL was the

sole livelihood of the editor and the business manager, and that they could wring their livelihood out of it

only by moving to escape paying rent and by never paying any bill they could evade. Nor could he have

guessed that the particular five dollars that belonged to him had been appropriated by the business manager

for the painting of his house in Alameda, which painting he performed himself, on weekday afternoons,

because he could not afford to pay union wages and because the first scab he had employed had had a ladder

jerked out from under him and been sent to the hospital with a broken collarbone.

The ten dollars for which Martin had sold "Treasure Hunters" to the Chicago newspaper did not come to

hand. The article had been published, as he had ascertained at the file in the Central Readingroom, but no

word could he get from the editor. His letters were ignored. To satisfy himself that they had been received, he

registered several of them. It was nothing less than robbery, he concluded a coldblooded steal; while he

starved, he was pilfered of his merchandise, of his goods, the sale of which was the sole way of getting bread

YOUTH AND AGE was a weekly, and it had published twothirds of his twentyonethousandword serial

when it went out of business. With it went all hopes of getting his sixteen dollars.

To cap the situation, "The Pot," which he looked upon as one of the best things he had written, was lost to

him. In despair, casting about frantically among the magazines, he had sent it to THE BILLOW, a society

weekly in San Francisco. His chief reason for submitting it to that publication was that, having only to travel

across the bay from Oakland, a quick decision could be reached. Two weeks later he was overjoyed to see, in

the latest number on the newsstand, his story printed in full, illustrated, and in the place of honor. He went

home with leaping pulse, wondering how much they would pay him for one of the best things he had done.

Also, the celerity with which it had been accepted and published was a pleasant thought to him. That the

editor had not informed him of the acceptance made the surprise more complete. After waiting a week, two

weeks, and half a week longer, desperation conquered diffidence, and he wrote to the editor of THE

BILLOW, suggesting that possibly through some negligence of the business manager his little account had

Even if it isn't more than five dollars, Martin thought to himself, it will buy enough beans and peasoup to

Back came a cool letter from the editor that at least elicited Martin's admiration.

"We thank you," it ran, "for your excellent contribution. All of us in the office enjoyed it immensely, and, as

you see, it was given the place of honor and immediate publication. We earnestly hope that you liked the

"On rereading your letter it seems to us that you are laboring under the misapprehension that we pay for

unsolicited manuscripts. This is not our custom, and of course yours was unsolicited. We assumed, naturally,

when we received your story, that you understood the situation. We can only deeply regret this unfortunate

misunderstanding, and assure you of our unfailing regard. Again, thanking you for your kind contribution,

There was also a postscript to the effect that though THE BILLOW carried no freelist, it took great pleasure

After that experience, Martin typed at the top of the first sheet of all his manuscripts: "Submitted at your

He discovered in himself, at this period, a passion for perfection, under the sway of which he rewrote and

polished "The Jostling Street," "The Wine of Life," "Joy," the "Sea Lyrics," and others of his earlier work. As

of old, nineteen hours of labor a day was all too little to suit him. He wrote prodigiously, and he read

prodigiously, forgetting in his toil the pangs caused by giving up his tobacco. Ruth's promised cure for the

habit, flamboyantly labelled, he stowed away in the most inaccessible corner of his bureau. Especially during

his stretches of famine he suffered from lack of the weed; but no matter how often he mastered the craving, it

remained with him as strong as ever. He regarded it as the biggest thing he had ever achieved. Ruth's point of

view was that he was doing no more than was right. She brought him the anti tobacco remedy, purchased

His machinemade storiettes, though he hated them and derided them, were successful. By means of them he

redeemed all his pledges, paid most of his bills, and bought a new set of tires for his wheel. The storiettes at

least kept the pot aboiling and gave him time for ambitious work; while the one thing that upheld him was

the forty dollars he had received from THE WHITE MOUSE. He anchored his faith to that, and was

confident that the really firstclass magazines would pay an unknown writer at least an equal rate, if not a

better one. But the thing was, how to get into the firstclass magazines. His best stories, essays, and poems

went begging among them, and yet, each month, he read reams of dull, prosy, inartistic stuff between all their

various covers. If only one editor, he sometimes thought, would descend from his high seat of pride to write

me one cheering line! No matter if my work is unusual, no matter if it is unfit, for prudential reasons, for their

pages, surely there must be some sparks in it, somewhere, a few, to warm them to some sort of appreciation.

And thereupon he would get out one or another of his manuscripts, such as "Adventure," and read it over and

As the sweet California spring came on, his period of plenty came to an end. For several weeks he had been

worried by a strange silence on the part of the newspaper storiette syndicate. Then, one day, came back to

him through the mail ten of his immaculate machinemade storiettes. They were accompanied by a brief

letter to the effect that the syndicate was overstocked, and that some months would elapse before it would be

in the market again for manuscripts. Martin had even been extravagant m the strength of those on ten

storiettes. Toward the last the syndicate had been paying him five dollars each for them and accepting every

one he sent. So he had looked upon the ten as good as sold, and he had lived accordingly, on a basis of fifty

dollars in the bank. So it was that he entered abruptly upon a lean period, wherein he continued selling his

earlier efforts to publications that would not pay and submitting his later work to magazines that would not

buy. Also, he resumed his trips to the pawnbroker down in Oakland. A few jokes and snatches of humorous

verse, sold to the New York weeklies, made existence barely possible for him. It was at this time that he

wrote letters of inquiry to the several great monthly and quarterly reviews, and learned in reply that they

rarely considered unsolicited articles, and that most of their contents were written upon order by wellknown

It was a hard summer for Martin. Manuscript readers and editors were away on vacation, and publications

that ordinarily returned a decision in three weeks now retained his manuscript for three months or more. The

consolation he drew from it was that a saving in postage was effected by the deadlock. Only the robber

publications seemed to remain actively in business, and to them Martin disposed of all his early efforts, such

as "Pearldiving," "The Sea as a Career," "Turtlecatching," and "The Northeast Trades." For these

manuscripts he never received a penny. It is true, after six months' correspondence, he effected a

compromise, whereby he received a safety razor for "Turtlecatching," and that THE ACROPOLIS, having

agreed to give him five dollars cash and five yearly subscriptions: for "The Northeast Trades," fulfilled the

For a sonnet on Stevenson he managed to wring two dollars out of a Boston editor who was running a

magazine with a Matthew Arnold taste and a pennydreadful purse. "The Peri and the Pearl," a clever skit of

a poem of two hundred lines, just finished, white hot from his brain, won the heart of the editor of a San

Francisco magazine published in the interest of a great railroad. When the editor wrote, offering him payment

in transportation, Martin wrote back to inquire if the transportation was transferable. It was not, and so, being

prevented from peddling it, he asked for the return of the poem. Back it came, with the editor's regrets, and

Martin sent it to San Francisco again, this time to THE HORNET, a pretentious monthly that had been fanned

into a constellation of the first magnitude by the brilliant journalist who founded it. But THE HORNET'S

light had begun to dim long before Martin was born. The editor promised Martin fifteen dollars for the poem,

but, when it was published, seemed to forget about it. Several of his letters being ignored, Martin indicted an

angry one which drew a reply. It was written by a new editor, who coolly informed Martin that he declined to

be held responsible for the old editor's mistakes, and that he did not think much of "The Peri and the Pearl"

But THE GLOBE, a Chicago magazine, gave Martin the most cruel treatment of all. He had refrained from

offering his "Sea Lyrics" for publication, until driven to it by starvation. After having been rejected by a

dozen magazines, they had come to rest in THE GLOBE office. There were thirty poems in the collection,

and he was to receive a dollar apiece for them. The first month four were published, and he promptly received

a cheek for four dollars; but when he looked over the magazine, he was appalled at the slaughter. In some

cases the titles had been altered: "Finis," for instance, being changed to "The Finish," and "The Song of the

Outer Reef" to "The Song of the Coral Reef." In one case, an absolutely different title, a misappropriate title,

was substituted. In place of his own, "Medusa Lights," the editor had printed, "The Backward Track." But the

slaughter in the body of the poems was terrifying. Martin groaned and sweated and thrust his hands through

his hair. Phrases, lines, and stanzas were cut out, interchanged, or juggled about in the most incomprehensible

manner. Sometimes lines and stanzas not his own were substituted for his. He could not believe that a sane

editor could be guilty of such maltreatment, and his favorite hypothesis was that his poems must have been

doctored by the office boy or the stenographer. Martin wrote immediately, begging the editor to cease

He wrote again and again, begging, entreating, threatening, but his letters were ignored. Month by month the

slaughter went on till the thirty poems were published, and month by month he received a check for those

Despite these various misadventures, the memory of the WHITE MOUSE fortydollar check sustained him,

though he was driven more and more to hackwork. He discovered a breadandbutter field in the

agricultural weeklies and trade journals, though among the religious weeklies he found he could easily starve.

At his lowest ebb, when his black suit was in pawn, he made a tenstrike or so it seemed to him in a prize

contest arranged by the County Committee of the Republican Party. There were three branches of the contest,

and he entered them all, laughing at himself bitterly the while in that he was driven to such straits to live. His

poem won the first prize of ten dollars, his campaign song the second prize of five dollars, his essay on the

principles of the Republican Party the first prize of twentyfive dollars. Which was very gratifying to him

until he tried to collect. Something had gone wrong in the County Committee, and, though a rich banker and

a state senator were members of it, the money was not forthcoming. While this affair was hanging fire, he

proved that he understood the principles of the Democratic Party by winning the first prize for his essay in a

similar contest. And, moreover, he received the money, twentyfive dollars. But the forty dollars won in the

Driven to shifts in order to see Ruth, and deciding that the long walk from north Oakland to her house and

back again consumed too much time, he kept his black suit in pawn in place of his bicycle. The latter gave

him exercise, saved him hours of time for work, and enabled him to see Ruth just the same. A pair of knee

duck trousers and an old sweater made him a presentable wheel costume, so that he could go with Ruth on

afternoon rides. Besides, he no longer had opportunity to see much of her in her own home, where Mrs.

Morse was thoroughly prosecuting her campaign of entertainment. The exalted beings he met there, and to

whom he had looked up but a short time before, now bored him. They were no longer exalted. He was

nervous and irritable, what of his hard times, disappointments, and close application to work, and the

conversation of such people was maddening. He was not unduly egotistic. He measured the narrowness of

their minds by the minds of the thinkers in the books he read. At Ruth's home he never met a large mind, with

the exception of Professor Caldwell, and Caldwell he had met there only once. As for the rest, they were

numskulls, ninnies, superficial, dogmatic, and ignorant. It was their ignorance that astounded him. What was

the matter with them? What had they done with their educations? They had had access to the same books he

He knew that the great minds, the deep and rational thinkers, existed. He had his proofs from the books, the

books that had educated him beyond the Morse standard. And he knew that higher intellects than those of the

Morse circle were to be found in the world. He read English society novels, wherein he caught glimpses of

men and women talking politics and philosophy. And he read of salons in great cities, even in the United

States, where art and intellect congregated. Foolishly, in the past, he had conceived that all wellgroomed

persons above the working class were persons with power of intellect and vigor of beauty. Culture and collars

had gone together, to him, and he had been deceived into believing that college educations and mastery were

Well, he would fight his way on and up higher. And he would take Ruth with him. Her he dearly loved, and

he was confident that she would shine anywhere. As it was clear to him that he had been handicapped by his

early environment, so now he perceived that she was similarly handicapped. She had not had a chance to

expand. The books on her father's shelves, the paintings on the walls, the music on the piano all was just so

much meretricious display. To real literature, real painting, real music, the Morses and their kind, were dead.

And bigger than such things was life, of which they were densely, hopelessly ignorant. In spite of their

Unitarian proclivities and their masks of conservative broadmindedness, they were two generations behind

interpretative science: their mental processes were mediaeval, while their thinking on the ultimate data of

existence and of the universe struck him as the same metaphysical method that was as young as the youngest

race, as old as the caveman, and older the same that moved the first Pleistocene apeman to fear the dark;

that moved the first hasty Hebrew savage to incarnate Eve from Adam's rib; that moved Descartes to build an

idealistic system of the universe out of the projections of his own puny ego; and that moved the famous

British ecclesiastic to denounce evolution in satire so scathing as to win immediate applause and leave his

So Martin thought, and he thought further, till it dawned upon him that the difference between these lawyers,

officers, business men, and bank cashiers he had met and the members of the working class he had known

was on a par with the difference in the food they ate, clothes they wore, neighborhoods in which they lived.

Certainly, in all of them was lacking the something more which he found in himself and in the books. The

Morses had shown him the best their social position could produce, and he was not impressed by it. A pauper

himself, a slave to the moneylender, he knew himself the superior of those he met at the Morses'; and, when

his one decent suit of clothes was out of pawn, he moved among them a lord of life, quivering with a sense of

"You hate and fear the socialists," he remarked to Mr. Morse, one evening at dinner; "but why? You know

The conversation had been swung in that direction by Mrs. Morse, who had been invidiously singing the

praises of Mr. Hapgood. The cashier was Martin's black beast, and his temper was a trifle short where the

"Yes," he had said, "Charley Hapgood is what they call a rising young man somebody told me as much.

And it is true. He'll make the Governor's Chair before he dies, and, who knows? maybe the United States

"I've heard him make a campaign speech. It was so cleverly stupid and unoriginal, and also so convincing,

that the leaders cannot help but regard him as safe and sure, while his platitudes are so much like the

platitudes of the average voter that oh, well, you know you flatter any man by dressing up his own thoughts

"No more than the average Republican," was the retort, "or average Democrat, either. They are all stupid

when they are not crafty, and very few of them are crafty. The only wise Republicans are the millionnaires

and their conscious henchmen. They know which side their bread is buttered on, and they know why."

"Why, yes. You do corporation work. You have no workingclass nor criminal practice. You don't depend

upon wifebeaters and pickpockets for your income. You get your livelihood from the masters of society, and

whoever feeds a man is that man's master. Yes, you are a henchman. You are interested in advancing the

"You hate and fear the socialists; but why? You know neither them nor their doctrines."

"Your doctrine certainly sounds like socialism," Mr. Morse replied, while Ruth gazed anxiously from one to

the other, and Mrs. Morse beamed happily at the opportunity afforded of rousing her liege lord's antagonism.

"Because I say Republicans are stupid, and hold that liberty, equality, and fraternity are exploded bubbles,

does not make me a socialist," Martin said with a smile. "Because I question Jefferson and the unscientific

Frenchmen who informed his mind, does not make me a socialist. Believe me, Mr. Morse, you are far nearer

"Not at all. I speak in all seriousness. You still believe in equality, and yet you do the work of the

corporations, and the corporations, from day to day, are busily engaged in burying equality. And you call me

a socialist because I deny equality, because I affirm just what you live up to. The Republicans are foes to

equality, though most of them fight the battle against equality with the very word itself the slogan on their

lips. In the name of equality they destroy equality. That was why I called them stupid. As for myself, I am an

individualist. I believe the race is to the swift, the battle to the strong. Such is the lesson I have learned from

biology, or at least think I have learned. As I said, I am an individualist, and individualism is the hereditary

"Certainly, just as spies frequent hostile camps. How else are you to learn about the enemy? Besides, I enjoy

myself at their meetings. They are good fighters, and, right or wrong, they have read the books. Any one of

them knows far more about sociology and all the other ologies than the average captain of industry. Yes, I

have been to half a dozen of their meetings, but that doesn't make me a socialist any more than hearing

"I can't help it," Mr. Morse said feebly, "but I still believe you incline that way."

Bless me, Martin thought to himself, he doesn't know what I was talking about. He hasn't understood a word

Thus, in his development, Martin found himself face to face with economic morality, or the morality of class;

and soon it became to him a grisly monster. Personally, he was an intellectual moralist, and more offending

to him than platitudinous pomposity was the morality of those about him, which was a curious hotchpotch of

A sample of this curious messy mixture he encountered nearer home. His sister Marian had been keeping

company with an industrious young mechanic, of German extraction, who, after thoroughly learning the

trade, had set up for himself in a bicyclerepair shop. Also, having got the agency for a lowgrade make of

wheel, he was prosperous. Marian had called on Martin in his room a short time before to announce her

engagement, during which visit she had playfully inspected Martin's palm and told his fortune. On her next

visit she brought Hermann von Schmidt along with her. Martin did the honors and congratulated both of them

in language so easy and graceful as to affect disagreeably the peasantmind of his sister's lover. This bad

impression was further heightened by Martin's reading aloud the halfdozen stanzas of verse with which he

had commemorated Marian's previous visit. It was a bit of society verse, airy and delicate, which he had

named "The Palmist." He was surprised, when he finished reading it, to note no enjoyment in his sister's face.

Instead, her eyes were fixed anxiously upon her betrothed, and Martin, following her gaze, saw spread on that

worthy's asymmetrical features nothing but black and sullen disapproval. The incident passed over, they

made an early departure, and Martin forgot all about it, though for the moment he had been puzzled that any

woman, even of the working class, should not have been flattered and delighted by having poetry written

Several evenings later Marian again visited him, this time alone. Nor did she waste time in coming to the

"Why, Marian," he chided, "you talk as though you were ashamed of your relatives, or of your brother at any

Martin was bewildered by the tears of mortification he saw in her eyes. The mood, whatever it was, was

"But, Marian, why should your Hermann be jealous of my writing poetry about my own sister?"

Martin emitted a long, low whistle of incredulity, then proceeded to resurrect and read a carbon copy of "The

"I can't see it," he said finally, proffering the manuscript to her. "Read it yourself and show me whatever

"He says so, and he ought to know," was the answer, with a wave aside of the manuscript, accompanied by a

look of loathing. "And he says you've got to tear it up. He says he won't have no wife of his with such things

written about her which anybody can read. He says it's a disgrace, an' he won't stand for it."

"Now, look here, Marian, this is nothing but nonsense," Martin began; then abruptly changed his mind.

He saw before him an unhappy girl, knew the futility of attempting to convince her husband or her, and,

though the whole situation was absurd and preposterous, he resolved to surrender.

"All right," he announced, tearing the manuscript into half a dozen pieces and throwing it into the

He contented himself with the knowledge that even then the original typewritten manuscript was reposing in

the office of a New York magazine. Marian and her husband would never know, and neither himself nor they

He nodded his head, regarding her thoughtfully as she gathered the torn pieces of manuscript and tucked

them into the pocket of her jacket ocular evidence of the success of her mission. She reminded him of

Lizzie Connolly, though there was less of fire and gorgeous flaunting life in her than in that other girl of the

working class whom he had seen twice. But they were on a par, the pair of them, in dress and carriage, and he

smiled with inward amusement at the caprice of his fancy which suggested the appearance of either of them

in Mrs. Morse's drawingroom. The amusement faded, and he was aware of a great loneliness. This sister of

his and the Morse drawingroom were milestones of the road he had travelled. And he had left them behind.

He glanced affectionately about him at his few books. They were all the comrades left to him.

"Why don't I go to work?" He broke into a laugh that was only halfhearted. "That Hermann of yours has

"Well, you tell that Hermann of yours to mind his own business; that when I write poetry about the girl he's

keeping company with it's his business, but that outside of that he's got no say so. Understand?

"So you don't think I'll succeed as a writer, eh?" he went on. "You think I'm no good? that I've fallen down

"I think it would be much better if you got a job," she said firmly, and he saw she was sincere. "Hermann

"Damn Hermann!" he broke out goodnaturedly. "What I want to know is when you're going to get married.

Also, you find out from your Hermann if he will deign to permit you to accept a wedding present from me."

He mused over the incident after she had gone, and once or twice broke out into laughter that was bitter as he

saw his sister and her betrothed, all the members of his own class and the members of Ruth's class, directing

their narrow little lives by narrow little formulas herdcreatures, flocking together and patterning their lives

by one another's opinions, failing of being individuals and of really living life because of the childlike

formulas by which they were enslaved. He summoned them before him in apparitional procession: Bernard

Higginbotham arm in arm with Mr. Butler, Hermann von Schmidt cheek by jowl with Charley Hapgood, and

one by one and in pairs he judged them and dismissed them judged them by the standards of intellect and

morality he had learned from the books. Vainly he asked: Where are the great souls, the great men and

women? He found them not among the careless, gross, and stupid intelligences that answered the call of

vision to his narrow room. He felt a loathing for them such as Circe must have felt for her swine. When he

had dismissed the last one and thought himself alone, a latecomer entered, unexpected and unsummoned.

Martin watched him and saw the stiffrim, the squarecut, doublebreasted coat and the swaggering

"You were like all the rest, young fellow," Martin sneered. "Your morality and your knowledge were just the

same as theirs. You did not think and act for yourself. Your opinions, like your clothes, were ready made;

your acts were shaped by popular approval. You were cock of your gang because others acclaimed you the

real thing. You fought and ruled the gang, not because you liked to, you know you really despised it, but

because the other fellows patted you on the shoulder. You licked CheeseFace because you wouldn't give in,

and you wouldn't give in partly because you were an abysmal brute and for the rest because you believed

what every one about you believed, that the measure of manhood was the carnivorous ferocity displayed in

injuring and marring fellowcreatures' anatomies. Why, you whelp, you even won other fellows' girls away

from them, not because you wanted the girls, but because in the marrow of those about you, those who set

your moral pace, was the instinct of the wild stallion and the bullseal. Well, the years have passed, and what

As if in reply, the vision underwent a swift metamorphosis. The stiffrim and the squarecut vanished, being

replaced by milder garments; the toughness went out of the face, the hardness out of the eyes; and, the face,

chastened and refined, was irradiated from an inner life of communion with beauty and knowledge. The

apparition was very like his present self, and, as he regarded it, he noted the studentlamp by which it was

illuminated, and the book over which it pored. He glanced at the title and read, "The Science of AEsthetics."

Next, he entered into the apparition, trimmed the studentlamp, and himself went on reading "The Science of

On a beautiful fall day, a day of similar Indian summer to that which had seen their love declared the year

before, Martin read his "Lovecycle" to Ruth. It was in the afternoon, and, as before, they had ridden out to

their favorite knoll in the hills. Now and again she had interrupted his reading with exclamations of pleasure,

and now, as he laid the last sheet of manuscript with its fellows, he waited her judgment.

She delayed to speak, and at last she spoke haltingly, hesitating to frame in words the harshness of her

"I think they are beautiful, very beautiful," she said; "but you can't sell them, can you? You see what I mean,"

she said, almost pleaded. "This writing of yours is not practical. Something is the matter maybe it is with

the market that prevents you from earning a living by it. And please, dear, don't misunderstand me. I am

flattered, and made proud, and all that I could not be a true woman were it otherwise that you should

write these poems to me. But they do not make our marriage possible. Don't you see, Martin? Don't think me

mercenary. It is love, the thought of our future, with which I am burdened. A whole year has gone by since

we learned we loved each other, and our wedding day is no nearer. Don't think me immodest in thus talking

about our wedding, for really I have my heart, all that I am, at stake. Why don't you try to get work on a

newspaper, if you are so bound up in your writing? Why not become a reporter? for a while, at least?"

"It would spoil my style," was his answer, in a low, monotonous voice. "You have no idea how I've worked

"But those storiettes," she argued. "You called them hackwork. You wrote many of them. Didn't they spoil

"No, the cases are different. The storiettes were ground out, jaded, at the end of a long day of application to

style. But a reporter's work is all hack from morning till night, is the one paramount thing of life. And it is a

whirlwind life, the life of the moment, with neither past nor future, and certainly without thought of any style

but reportorial style, and that certainly is not literature. To become a reporter now, just as my style is taking

form, crystallizing, would be to commit literary suicide. As it is, every storiette, every word of every storiette,

was a violation of myself, of my selfrespect, of my respect for beauty. I tell you it was sickening. I was

guilty of sin. And I was secretly glad when the markets failed, even if my clothes did go into pawn. But the

joy of writing the 'Lovecycle'! The creative joy in its noblest form! That was compensation for everything."

Martin did not know that Ruth was unsympathetic concerning the creative joy. She used the phrase it was

on her lips he had first heard it. She had read about it, studied about it, in the university in the course of

earning her Bachelorship of Arts; but she was not original, not creative, and all manifestations of culture on

"May not the editor have been right in his revision of your 'Sea Lyrics'?" she questioned. "Remember, an

"That's in line with the persistence of the established," he rejoined, his heat against the editorfolk getting the

better of him. "What is, is not only right, but is the best possible. The existence of anything is sufficient

vindication of its fitness to exist to exist, mark you, as the average person unconsciously believes, not

merely in present conditions, but in all conditions. It is their ignorance, of course, that makes them believe

such rot their ignorance, which is nothing more nor less than the henidical mental process described by

Weininger. They think they think, and such thinkless creatures are the arbiters of the lives of the few who

He paused, overcome by the consciousness that he had been talking over Ruth's head.

"I'm sure I don't know who this Weininger is," she retorted. "And you are so dreadfully general that I fail to

"And I'll tell you," he interrupted. "The chief qualification of ninetynine per cent of all editors is failure.

They have failed as writers. Don't think they prefer the drudgery of the desk and the slavery to their

circulation and to the business manager to the joy of writing. They have tried to write, and they have failed.

And right there is the cursed paradox of it. Every portal to success in literature is guarded by those

watchdogs, the failures in literature. The editors, subeditors, associate editors, most of them, and the

manuscriptreaders for the magazines and book publishers, most of them, nearly all of them, are men who

wanted to write and who have failed. And yet they, of all creatures under the sun the most unfit, are the very

creatures who decide what shall and what shall not find its way into print they, who have proved

themselves not original, who have demonstrated that they lack the divine fire, sit in judgment upon originality

and genius. And after them come the reviewers, just so many more failures. Don't tell me that they have not

dreamed the dream and attempted to write poetry or fiction; for they have, and they have failed. Why, the

average review is more nauseating than codliver oil. But you know my opinion on the reviewers and the

alleged critics. There are great critics, but they are as rare as comets. If I fail as a writer, I shall have proved

Ruth's mind was quick, and her disapproval of her lover's views was buttressed by the contradiction she

"But, Martin, if that be so, if all the doors are closed as you have shown so conclusively, how is it possible

"They arrived by achieving the impossible," he answered. "They did such blazing, glorious work as to burn to

ashes those that opposed them. They arrived by course of miracle, by winning a thousandto one wager

against them. They arrived because they were Carlyle's battlescarred giants who will not be kept down. And

"If I fail?" He regarded her for a moment as though the thought she had uttered was unthinkable. Then

intelligence illumined his eyes. "If I fail, I shall become an editor, and you will be an editor's wife."

She frowned at his facetiousness a pretty, adorable frown that made him put his arm around her and kiss it

"There, that's enough," she urged, by an effort of will withdrawing herself from the fascination of his

strength. "I have talked with father and mother. I never before asserted myself so against them. I demanded to

be heard. I was very undutiful. They are against you, you know; but I assured them over and over of my

abiding love for you, and at last father agreed that if you wanted to, you could begin right away in his office.

And then, of his own accord, he said he would pay you enough at the start so that we could get married and

Martin, with the dull pain of despair at his heart, mechanically reaching for the tobacco and paper (which he

no longer carried) to roll a cigarette, muttered something inarticulate, and Ruth went on.

"Frankly, though, and don't let it hurt you I tell you, to show you precisely how you stand with him he

doesn't like your radical views, and he thinks you are lazy. Of course I know you are not. I know you work

The question was answered for him, and so oppressed was he by the grayness of life that he forgot the

tentative proposition she had made for him to go to work. And she, having gone as far as she dared, was

She had not long to wait. Martin had a question of his own to propound to her. He wanted to ascertain the

measure of her faith in him, and within the week each was answered. Martin precipitated it by reading to her

"Why don't you become a reporter?" she asked when he had finished. "You love writing so, and I am sure

you would succeed. You could rise in journalism and make a name for yourself. There are a number of great

special correspondents. Their salaries are large, and their field is the world. They are sent everywhere, to the

heart of Africa, like Stanley, or to interview the Pope, or to explore unknown Thibet."

"Then you don't like my essay?" he rejoined. "You believe that I have some show in journalism but none in

"No, no; I do like it. It reads well. But I am afraid it's over the heads of your readers. At least it is over mine.

It sounds beautiful, but I don't understand it. Your scientific slang is beyond me. You are an extremist, you

know, dear, and what may be intelligible to you may not be intelligible to the rest of us."

He was flaming from the fresh reading of the ripest thought he had expressed, and her verdict stunned him.

"No matter how poorly it is done," he persisted, "don't you see anything in it? in the thought of it, I mean?"

"No, it is so different from anything I have read. I read Maeterlinck and understand him "

"Yes, but this of yours, which is supposed to be an attack upon him, I don't understand. Of course, if

He stopped her with an impatient gesture that was not followed by speech. He became suddenly aware that

"After all, your writing has been a toy to you," she was saying. "Surely you have played with it long enough.

It is time to take up life seriously OUR life, Martin. Hitherto you have lived solely your own."

"I understand all that," he broke in; "but what I want to know is whether or not you have lost faith in me?"

"You've read lots of my stuff," he went on brutally. "What do you think of it? Is it utterly hopeless? How

"That doesn't answer my question. Do you think that literature is not at all my vocation?"

"Then I will answer." She steeled herself to do it. "I don't think you were made to write. Forgive me, dear.

You compel me to say it; and you know I know more about literature than you do."

"Yes, you are a Bachelor of Arts," he said meditatively; "and you ought to know."

"But there is more to be said," he continued, after a pause painful to both. "I know what I have in me. No one

knows that so well as I. I know I shall succeed. I will not be kept down. I am afire with what I have to say in

verse, and fiction, and essay. I do not ask you to have faith in that, though. I do not ask you to have faith in

me, nor in my writing. What I do ask of you is to love me and have faith in love."

"A year ago I believed for two years. One of those years is yet to run. And I do believe, upon my honor and

my soul, that before that year is run I shall have succeeded. You remember what you told me long ago, that I

must serve my apprenticeship to writing. Well, I have served it. I have crammed it and telescoped it. With

you at the end awaiting me, I have never shirked. Do you know, I have forgotten what it is to fall peacefully

asleep. A few million years ago I knew what it was to sleep my fill and to awake naturally from very glut of

sleep. I am awakened always now by an alarm clock. If I fall asleep early or late, I set the alarm accordingly;

"When I begin to feel drowsy, I change the heavy book I am reading for a lighter one. And when I doze over

that, I beat my head with my knuckles in order to drive sleep away. Somewhere I read of a man who was

afraid to sleep. Kipling wrote the story. This man arranged a spur so that when unconsciousness came, his

naked body pressed against the iron teeth. Well, I've done the same. I look at the time, and I resolve that not

until midnight, or not until one o'clock, or two o'clock, or three o'clock, shall the spur be removed. And so it

rowels me awake until the appointed time. That spur has been my bedmate for months. I have grown so

desperate that five and a half hours of sleep is an extravagance. I sleep four hours now. I am starved for sleep.

There are times when I am lightheaded from want of sleep, times when death, with its rest and sleep, is a

"'The sea is still and deep; All things within its bosom sleep; A single step and all is o'er, A plunge, a bubble,

"Of course, this is sheer nonsense. It comes from nervousness, from an overwrought mind. But the point is:

Why have I done this? For you. To shorten my apprenticeship. To compel Success to hasten. And my

apprenticeship is now served. I know my equipment. I swear that I learn more each month than the average

college man learns in a year. I know it, I tell you. But were my need for you to understand not so desperate I

should not tell you. It is not boasting. I measure the results by the books. Your brothers, to day, are ignorant

barbarians compared with me and the knowledge I have wrung from the books in the hours they were

sleeping. Long ago I wanted to be famous. I care very little for fame now. What I want is you; I am more

hungry for you than for food, or clothing, or recognition. I have a dream of laying my head on your breast

and sleeping an aeon or so, and the dream will come true ere another year is gone."

His power beat against her, wave upon wave; and in the moment his will opposed hers most she felt herself

most strongly drawn toward him. The strength that had always poured out from him to her was now

flowering in his impassioned voice, his flashing eyes, and the vigor of life and intellect surging in him. And

in that moment, and for the moment, she was aware of a rift that showed in her certitude a rift through

which she caught sight of the real Martin Eden, splendid and invincible; and as animaltrainers have their

moments of doubt, so she, for the instant, seemed to doubt her power to tame this wild spirit of a man.

"And another thing," he swept on. "You love me. But why do you love me? The thing in me that compels me

to write is the very thing that draws your love. You love me because I am somehow different from the men

you have known and might have loved. I was not made for the desk and countinghouse, for petty business

squabbling, and legal jangling. Make me do such things, make me like those other men, doing the work they

do, breathing the air they breathe, developing the point of view they have developed, and you have destroyed

the difference, destroyed me, destroyed the thing you love. My desire to write is the most vital thing in me.

Had I been a mere clod, neither would I have desired to write, nor would you have desired me for a husband."

"But you forget," she interrupted, the quick surface of her mind glimpsing a parallel. "There have been

eccentric inventors, starving their families while they sought such chimeras as perpetual motion. Doubtless

their wives loved them, and suffered with them and for them, not because of but in spite of their infatuation

"True," was the reply. "But there have been inventors who were not eccentric and who starved while they

sought to invent practical things; and sometimes, it is recorded, they succeeded. Certainly I do not seek any

"I spoke figuratively. I seek to do what men have done before me to write and to live by my writing."

He read her answer in the pressure of her hand on his the pitying motherhand for the hurt child. And to

her, just then, he was the hurt child, the infatuated man striving to achieve the impossible.

Toward the close of their talk she warned him again of the antagonism of her father and mother.

"And I love you, not them, and nothing they do can hurt me." Triumph sounded in his voice. "For I have faith

in your love, not fear of their enmity. All things may go astray in this world, but not love. Love cannot go

Martin had encountered his sister Gertrude by chance on Broadway as it proved, a most propitious yet

disconcerting chance. Waiting on the corner for a car, she had seen him first, and noted the eager, hungry

lines of his face and the desperate, worried look of his eyes. In truth, he was desperate and worried. He had

just come from a fruitless interview with the pawnbroker, from whom he had tried to wring an additional loan

on his wheel. The muddy fall weather having come on, Martin had pledged his wheel some time since and

"There's the black suit," the pawnbroker, who knew his every asset, had answered. "You needn't tell me

"All right," the mollified usurer had replied. "And I want it on a matter of business before I can let you have

"But it's a fortydollar wheel, in good condition," Martin had argued. "And you've only let me have seven

dollars on it. No, not even seven. Six and a quarter; you took the interest in advance."

"If you want some more, bring the suit," had been the reply that sent Martin out of the stuffy little den, so

Scarcely had they met when the Telegraph Avenue car came along and stopped to take on a crowd of

afternoon shoppers. Mrs. Higginbotham divined from the grip on her arm as he helped her on, that he was not

going to follow her. She turned on the step and looked down upon him. His haggard face smote her to the

"Then I'll go along for a few blocks," she announced. "Mebbe it'll do me good. I ain't ben feelin' any too spry

Martin glanced at her and verified her statement in her general slovenly appearance, in the unhealthy fat, in

the drooping shoulders, the tired face with the sagging lines, and in the heavy fall of her feet, without

"You'd better stop here," he said, though she had already come to a halt at the first corner, "and take the next

"My goodness! if I ain't all tired a'ready!" she panted. "But I'm just as able to walk as you in them soles.

"Come out to dinner tomorrow," she invited irrelevantly. "Mr. Higginbotham won't be there. He's goin' to

Martin shook his head, but he had failed to keep back the wolfish, hungry look that leapt into his eyes at the

"You haven't a penny, Mart, and that's why you're walkin'. Exercise!" She tried to sniff contemptuously, but

And, fumbling in her satchel, she pressed a fivedollar piece into his hand. "I guess I forgot your last

Martin's hand instinctively closed on the piece of gold. In the same instant he knew he ought not to accept,

and found himself struggling in the throes of indecision. That bit of gold meant food, life, and light in his

body and brain, power to go on writing, and who was to say? maybe to write something that would bring

in many pieces of gold. Clear on his vision burned the manuscripts of two essays he had just completed. He

saw them under the table on top of the heap of returned manuscripts for which he had no stamps, and he saw

their titles, just as he had typed them "The High Priests of Mystery," and "The Cradle of Beauty." He had

never submitted them anywhere. They were as good as anything he had done in that line. If only he had

stamps for them! Then the certitude of his ultimate success rose up in him, an able ally of hunger, and with a

"I'll pay you back, Gertrude, a hundred times over," he gulped out, his throat painfully contracted and in his

"Mark my words!" he cried with abrupt positiveness. "Before the year is out I'll put an even hundred of those

little yellowboys into your hand. I don't ask you to believe me. All you have to do is wait and see."

Nor did she believe. Her incredulity made her uncomfortable, and failing of other expedient, she said:

"I know you're hungry, Mart. It's sticking out all over you. Come in to meals any time. I'll send one of the

He waited, though he knew in his secret heart what she was about to say, so visible was her thought process

"Nobody has faith in me, Gertrude, except myself." His voice was passionately rebellious. "I've done good

"Because " He faltered as the whole vast field of literature and the history of literature stirred in his brain

and pointed the futility of his attempting to convey to her the reasons for his faith. "Well, because it's better

"I wish't you'd listen to reason," she answered feebly, but with unwavering belief in the correctness of her

diagnosis of what was ailing him. "I wish't you'd listen to reason," she repeated, "an' come to dinner

After Martin had helped her on the car, he hurried to the post office and invested three of the five dollars in

stamps; and when, later in the day, on the way to the Morse home, he stopped in at the postoffice to weigh a

large number of long, bulky envelopes, he affixed to them all the stamps save three of the twocent

It proved a momentous night for Martin, for after dinner he met Russ Brissenden. How he chanced to come

there, whose friend he was or what acquaintance brought him, Martin did not know. Nor had he the curiosity

to inquire about him of Ruth. In short, Brissenden struck Martin as anaemic and featherbrained, and was

promptly dismissed from his mind. An hour later he decided that Brissenden was a boor as well, what of the

way he prowled about from one room to another, staring at the pictures or poking his nose into books and

magazines he picked up from the table or drew from the shelves. Though a stranger in the house he finally

isolated himself in the midst of the company, huddling into a capacious Morris chair and reading steadily

from a thin volume he had drawn from his pocket. As he read, he abstractedly ran his fingers, with a

caressing movement, through his hair. Martin noticed him no more that evening, except once when he

observed him chaffing with great apparent success with several of the young women.

It chanced that when Martin was leaving, he overtook Brissenden already half down the walk to the street.

The other replied with an ungracious grunt, but swung alongside. Martin made no further attempt at

The suddenness and the virulence of the exclamation startled Martin. He felt amused, and at the same time

"What do you go to such a place for?" was abruptly flung at him after another block of silence.

"Bless me, I don't know," came back. "At least this is my first indiscretion. There are twentyfour hours in

The next moment he was nonplussed by the readiness of his acceptance. At home was several hours'

hackwork waiting for him before he went to bed, and after he went to bed there was a volume of Weismann

waiting for him, to say nothing of Herbert Spencer's Autobiography, which was as replete for him with

romance as any thrilling novel. Why should he waste any time with this man he did not like? was his thought.

And yet, it was not so much the man nor the drink as was it what was associated with the drink the bright

lights, the mirrors and dazzling array of glasses, the warm and glowing faces and the resonant hum of the

voices of men. That was it, it was the voices of men, optimistic men, men who breathed success and spent

their money for drinks like men. He was lonely, that was what was the matter with him; that was why he had

snapped at the invitation as a bonita strikes at a white rag on a hook. Not since with Joe, at Shelly Hot

Springs, with the one exception of the wine he took with the Portuguese grocer, had Martin had a drink at a

public bar. Mental exhaustion did not produce a craving for liquor such as physical exhaustion did, and he

had felt no need for it. But just now he felt desire for the drink, or, rather, for the atmosphere wherein drinks

were dispensed and disposed of. Such a place was the Grotto, where Brissenden and he lounged in capacious

They talked. They talked about many things, and now Brissenden and now Martin took turn in ordering

Scotch and soda. Martin, who was extremely strongheaded, marvelled at the other's capacity for liquor, and

ever and anon broke off to marvel at the other's conversation. He was not long in assuming that Brissenden

knew everything, and in deciding that here was the second intellectual man he had met. But he noted that

Brissenden had what Professor Caldwell lacked namely, fire, the flashing insight and perception, the

flaming uncontrol of genius. Living language flowed from him. His thin lips, like the dies of a machine,

stamped out phrases that cut and stung; or again, pursing caressingly about the inchoate sound they

articulated, the thin lips shaped soft and velvety things, mellow phrases of glow and glory, of haunting

beauty, reverberant of the mystery and inscrutableness of life; and yet again the thin lips were like a bugle,

from which rang the crash and tumult of cosmic strife, phrases that sounded clear as silver, that were

luminous as starry spaces, that epitomized the final word of science and yet said something more the poet's

word, the transcendental truth, elusive and without words which could express, and which none the less found

expression in the subtle and all but ungraspable connotations of common words. He, by some wonder of

vision, saw beyond the farthest outpost of empiricism, where was no language for narration, and yet, by some

golden miracle of speech, investing known words with unknown significances, he conveyed to Martin's

Martin forgot his first impression of dislike. Here was the best the books had to offer coming true. Here was

an intelligence, a living man for him to look up to. "I am down in the dirt at your feet," Martin repeated to

"But you are stating truths that are substantiated only by biology," Martin insisted, and was rewarded by a

blank stare. "Your conclusions are in line with the books which you must have read."

"I am glad to hear it," was the answer. "That my smattering of knowledge should enable me to shortcut my

way to truth is most reassuring. As for myself, I never bother to find out if I am right or not. It is all valueless

"I haven't read him since adolescence, and all I read then was his 'Education.'"

"I wish I could gather knowledge as carelessly," Martin broke out half an hour later. He had been closely

analyzing Brissenden's mental equipment. "You are a sheer dogmatist, and that's what makes it so

marvellous. You state dogmatically the latest facts which science has been able to establish only by E

POSTERIORI reasoning. You jump at correct conclusions. You certainly short cut with a vengeance. You

feel your way with the speed of light, by some hyperrational process, to truth."

"Yes, that was what used to bother Father Joseph, and Brother Dutton," Brissenden replied. "Oh, no," he

added; "I am not anything. It was a lucky trick of fate that sent me to a Catholic college for my education.

And while Martin told him, he was busy studying Brissenden, ranging from a long, lean, aristocratic face and

drooping shoulders to the overcoat on a neighboring chair, its pockets sagged and bulged by the freightage of

many books. Brissenden's face and long, slender hands were browned by the sun excessively browned,

Martin thought. This sunburn bothered Martin. It was patent that Brissenden was no outdoor man. Then how

had he been ravaged by the sun? Something morbid and significant attached to that sunburn, was Martin's

thought as he returned to a study of the face, narrow, with high cheekbones and cavernous hollows, and

graced with as delicate and fine an aquiline nose as Martin had ever seen. There was nothing remarkable

about the size of the eyes. They were neither large nor small, while their color was a nondescript brown; but

in them smouldered a fire, or, rather, lurked an expression dual and strangely contradictory. Defiant,

indomitable, even harsh to excess, they at the same time aroused pity. Martin found himself pitying him he

"Oh, I'm a lunger," Brissenden announced, offhand, a little later, having already stated that he came from

There was no special emphasis of his repetition of Martin's word. But Martin saw in that ascetic face the

advertisement that there was nothing of which it was afraid. The eyes had narrowed till they were eaglelike,

and Martin almost caught his breath as he noted the eagle beak with its dilated nostrils, defiant, assertive,

aggressive. Magnificent, was what he commented to himself, his blood thrilling at the sight. Aloud, he

"You like Henley," Brissenden said, his expression changing swiftly to large graciousness and tenderness.

"Of course, I couldn't have expected anything else of you. Ah, Henley! A brave soul. He stands out among

contemporary rhymesters magazine rhymesters as a gladiator stands out in the midst of a band of

"That's better," was the mollified rejoinder. "You try to write, but you don't succeed. I respect and admire

your failure. I know what you write. I can see it with half an eye, and there's one ingredient in it that shuts it

out of the magazines. It's guts, and magazines have no use for that particular commodity. What they want is

"On the contrary " Brissenden paused and ran an insolent eye over Martin's objective poverty, passing from

the wellworn tie and the sawedged collar to the shiny sleeves of the coat and on to the slight fray of one

cuff, winding up and dwelling upon Martin's sunken cheeks. "On the contrary, hackwork is above you, so

far above you that you can never hope to rise to it. Why, man, I could insult you by asking you to have

Martin felt the heat in his face of the involuntary blood, and Brissenden laughed triumphantly.

Brissenden half rose from his chair as he spoke, as if with the intention of departing to the restaurant

"Bosco! He eats 'em alive! Eats 'em alive!" Brissenden exclaimed, imitating the SPIELER of a locally famous

"I could certainly eat you alive," Martin said, in turn running insolent eyes over the other's diseaseravaged

"On the contrary," Martin considered, "because the incident is not worthy." He broke into a laugh, hearty and

wholesome. "I confess you made a fool of me, Brissenden. That I am hungry and you are aware of it are only

ordinary phenomena, and there's no disgrace. You see, I laugh at the conventional little moralities of the herd;

then you drift by, say a sharp, true word, and immediately I am the slave of the same little moralities."

"I certainly was, a moment ago. The prejudice of early youth, you know. I learned such things then, and they

cheapen what I have since learned. They are the skeletons in my particular closet."

"I'll go you," Martin answered, attempting to pay for the current Scotch and soda with the last change from

his two dollars and seeing the waiter bullied by Brissenden into putting that change back on the table.

Martin pocketed it with a grimace, and felt for a moment the kindly weight of Brissenden's hand upon his

Promptly, the next afternoon, Maria was excited by Martin's second visitor. But she did not lose her head this

"No, no, not at all," Martin answered, shaking hands and waving him to the solitary chair, himself taking to

"Called up the Morses. Miss Morse answered the 'phone. And here I am." He tugged at his coat pocket and

flung a thin volume on the table. "There's a book, by a poet. Read it and keep it." And then, in reply to

Martin's protest: "What have I to do with books? I had another hemorrhage this morning. Got any whiskey?

He was off and away. Martin watched his long figure go down the outside steps, and, on turning to close the

gate, noted with a pang the shoulders, which had once been broad, drawn in now over, the collapsed ruin of

the chest. Martin got two tumblers, and fell to reading the book of verse, Henry Vaughn Marlow's latest

"No Scotch," Brissenden announced on his return. "The beggar sells nothing but American whiskey. But

"I'll send one of the youngsters for lemons, and we'll make a toddy," Martin offered.

"I wonder what a book like that will earn Marlow?" he went on, holding up the volume in question.

"Possibly fifty dollars," came the answer. "Though he's lucky if he pulls even on it, or if he can inveigle a

"Certainly not. What fool expects to? Out of rhyming, yes. There's Bruce, and Virginia Spring, and

Sedgwick. They do very nicely. But poetry do you know how Vaughn Marlow makes his living? teaching

in a boys' crammingjoint down in Pennsylvania, and of all private little hells such a billet is the limit. I

wouldn't trade places with him if he had fifty years of life before him. And yet his work stands out from the

ruck of the contemporary versifiers as a balas ruby among carrots. And the reviews he gets! Damn them, all

"Too much is written by the men who can't write about the men who do write," Martin concurred. "Why, I

was appalled at the quantities of rubbish written about Stevenson and his work."

"Ghouls and harpies!" Brissenden snapped out with clicking teeth. "Yes, I know the spawn complacently

"Yes, that's it, a good phrase, mouthing and besliming the True, and Beautiful, and Good, and finally

patting him on the back and saying, 'Good dog, Fido.' Faugh! 'The little chattering daws of men,' Richard

"Pecking at stardust," Martin took up the strain warmly; "at the meteoric flight of the mastermen. I once

So Martin unearthed a carbon copy of "Stardust," and during the reading of it Brissenden chuckled, rubbed

"Strikes me you're a bit of stardust yourself, flung into a world of cowled gnomes who cannot see," was his

Martin ran over the pages of his manuscript book. "It has been refused by twentyseven of them."

Brissenden essayed a long and hearty laugh, but broke down in a fit of coughing.

"Say, you needn't tell me you haven't tackled poetry," he gasped. "Let me see some of it."

"Don't read it now," Martin pleaded. "I want to talk with you. I'll make up a bundle and you can take it

Brissenden departed with the "Lovecycle," and "The Peri and the Pearl," returning next day to greet Martin

Not only did he assure Martin that he was a poet, but Martin learned that Brissenden also was one. He was

swept off his feet by the other's work, and astounded that no attempt had been made to publish it.

"A plague on all their houses!" was Brissenden's answer to Martin's volunteering to market his work for him.

"Love Beauty for its own sake," was his counsel, "and leave the magazines alone. Back to your ships and

your sea that's my advice to you, Martin Eden. What do you want in these sick and rotten cities of men?

You are cutting your throat every day you waste in them trying to prostitute beauty to the needs of

magazinedom. What was it you quoted me the other day? Oh, yes, 'Man, the latest of the ephemera.' Well,

what do you, the latest of the ephemera, want with fame? If you got it, it would be poison to you. You are too

simple, took elemental, and too rational, by my faith, to prosper on such pap. I hope you never do sell a line

to the magazines. Beauty is the only master to serve. Serve her and damn the multitude! Success! What in

hell's success if it isn't right there in your Stevenson sonnet, which outranks Henley's 'Apparition,' in that

"It is not in what you succeed in doing that you get your joy, but in the doing of it. You can't tell me. I know

it. You know it. Beauty hurts you. It is an everlasting pain in you, a wound that does not heal, a knife of

flame. Why should you palter with magazines? Let beauty be your end. Why should you mint beauty into

gold? Anyway, you can't; so there's no use in my getting excited over it. You can read the magazines for a

thousand years and you won't find the value of one line of Keats. Leave fame and coin alone, sign away on a

"Not for fame, but for love," Martin laughed. "Love seems to have no place in your Cosmos; in mine, Beauty

Brissenden looked at him pityingly and admiringly. "You are so young, Martin boy, so young. You will

flutter high, but your wings are of the finest gauze, dusted with the fairest pigments. Do not scorch them. But

of course you have scorched them already. It required some glorified petticoat to account for that

"The philosophy of madness," was the retort. "So have I assured myself when wandering in hasheesh dreams.

But beware. These bourgeois cities will kill you. Look at that den of traitors where I met you. Dry rot is no

name for it. One can't keep his sanity in such an atmosphere. It's degrading. There's not one of them who is

not degrading, man and woman, all of them animated stomachs guided by the high intellectual and artistic

He broke off suddenly and regarded Martin. Then, with a flash of divination, he saw the situation. The

"And you wrote that tremendous 'Lovecycle' to her that pale, shrivelled, female thing!"

The next instant Martin's right hand had shot to a throttling clutch on his throat, and he was being shaken till

his teeth rattled. But Martin, looking into his eyes, saw no fear there, naught but a curious and mocking

devil. Martin remembered himself, and flung Brissenden, by the neck, sidelong upon the bed, at the same

"My nerves are on a hairtrigger these days," Martin apologized. "Hope I didn't hurt you. Here, let me mix a

"Ah, you young Greek!" Brissenden went on. "I wonder if you take just pride in that body of yours. You are

devilish strong. You are a young panther, a lion cub. Well, well, it is you who must pay for that strength."

"What do you mean?" Martin asked curiously, passing aim a glass. "Here, down this and be good."

"Because " Brissenden sipped his toddy and smiled appreciation of it. "Because of the women. They will

worry you until you die, as they have already worried you, or else I was born yesterday. Now there's no use in

your choking me; I'm going to have my say. This is undoubtedly your calf love; but for Beauty's sake show

better taste next time. What under heaven do you want with a daughter of the bourgeoisie? Leave them alone.

Pick out some great, wanton flame of a woman, who laughs at life and jeers at death and loves one while she

may. There are such women, and they will love you just as readily as any pusillanimous product of bourgeois

"Just so, pusillanimous; prattling out little moralities that have been prattled into them, and afraid to live life.

They will love you, Martin, but they will love their little moralities more. What you want is the magnificent

abandon of life, the great free souls, the blazing butterflies and not the little gray moths. Oh, you will grow

tired of them, too, of all the female things, if you are unlucky enough to live. But you won't live. You won't

go back to your ships and sea; therefore, you'll hang around these pestholes of cities until your bones are

"You can lecture me, but you can't make me talk back," Martin said. "After all, you have but the wisdom of

your temperament, and the wisdom of my temperament is just as unimpeachable as yours."

They disagreed about love, and the magazines, and many things, but they liked each other, and on Martin's

part it was no less than a profound liking. Day after day they were together, if for no more than the hour

Brissenden spent in Martin's stuffy room. Brissenden never arrived without his quart of whiskey, and when

they dined together downtown, he drank Scotch and soda throughout the meal. He invariably paid the way

for both, and it was through him that Martin learned the refinements of food, drank his first champagne, and

But Brissenden was always an enigma. With the face of an ascetic, he was, in all the failing blood of him, a

frank voluptuary. He was unafraid to die, bitter and cynical of all the ways of living; and yet, dying, he loved

life, to the last atom of it. He was possessed by a madness to live, to thrill, "to squirm my little space in the

cosmic dust whence I came," as he phrased it once himself. He had tampered with drugs and done many

strange things in quest of new thrills, new sensations. As he told Martin, he had once gone three days without

water, had done so voluntarily, in order to experience the exquisite delight of such a thirst assuaged. Who or

what he was, Martin never learned. He was a man without a past, whose future was the imminent grave and

Martin was steadily losing his battle. Economize as he would, the earnings from hackwork did not balance

expenses. Thanksgiving found him with his black suit in pawn and unable to accept the Morses' invitation to

dinner. Ruth was not made happy by his reason for not coming, and the corresponding effect on him was one

of desperation. He told her that he would come, after all; that he would go over to San Francisco, to the

TRANSCONTINENTAL office, collect the five dollars due him, and with it redeem his suit of clothes.

In the morning he borrowed ten cents from Maria. He would have borrowed it, by preference, from

Brissenden, but that erratic individual had disappeared. Two weeks had passed since Martin had seen him,

and he vainly cudgelled his brains for some cause of offence. The ten cents carried Martin across the ferry to

San Francisco, and as he walked up Market Street he speculated upon his predicament in case he failed to

collect the money. There would then be no way for him to return to Oakland, and he knew no one in San

The door to the TRANSCONTINENTAL office was ajar, and Martin, in the act of opening it, was brought to

a sudden pause by a loud voice from within, which exclaimed: "But that is not the question, Mr. Ford."

(Ford, Martin knew, from his correspondence, to be the editor's name.) "The question is, are you prepared to

pay? cash, and cash down, I mean? I am not interested in the prospects of the TRANSCONTINENTAL and

what you expect to make it next year. What I want is to be paid for what I do. And I tell you, right now, the

Christmas TRANSCONTINENTAL don't go to press till I have the money in my hand. Good day. When you

The door jerked open, and the man flung past Martin, with an angry countenance and went down the corridor,

muttering curses and clenching his fists. Martin decided not to enter immediately, and lingered in the

hallways for a quarter of an hour. Then he shoved the door open and walked in. It was a new experience, the

first time he had been inside an editorial office. Cards evidently were not necessary in that office, for the boy

carried word to an inner room that there was a man who wanted to see Mr. Ford. Returning, the boy beckoned

him from halfway across the room and led him to the private office, the editorial sanctum. Martin's first

impression was of the disorder and cluttered confusion of the room. Next he noticed a bewhiskered,

youthfullooking man, sitting at a rolltop desk, who regarded him curiously. Martin marvelled at the calm

repose of his face. It was evident that the squabble with the printer had not affected his equanimity.

"I I am Martin Eden," Martin began the conversation. ("And I want my five dollars," was what he would

But this was his first editor, and under the circumstances he did not desire to scare him too abruptly. To his

surprise, Mr. Ford leaped into the air with a "You don't say so!" and the next moment, with both hands, was

"Can't say how glad I am to see you, Mr. Eden. Often wondered what you were like."

Here he held Martin off at arm's length and ran his beaming eyes over Martin's secondbest suit, which was

also his worst suit, and which was ragged and past repair, though the trousers showed the careful crease he

"I confess, though, I conceived you to be a much older man than you are. Your story, you know, showed such

breadth, and vigor, such maturity and depth of thought. A masterpiece, that story I knew it when I had read

the first halfdozen lines. Let me tell you how I first read it. But no; first let me introduce you to the staff."

Still talking, Mr. Ford led him into the general office, where he introduced him to the associate editor, Mr.

White, a slender, frail little man whose hand seemed strangely cold, as if he were suffering from a chill, and

Martin found himself shaking hands with a crankyeyed, baldheaded man, whose face looked youthful

enough from what little could be seen of it, for most of it was covered by a snowwhite beard, carefully

trimmed by his wife, who did it on Sundays, at which times she also shaved the back of his neck.

The three men surrounded Martin, all talking admiringly and at once, until it seemed to him that they were

"I didn't have the carfare, and I live across the Bay," Martin answered bluntly, with the idea of showing them

Surely, he thought to himself, my glad rags in themselves are eloquent advertisement of my need. Time and

again, whenever opportunity offered, he hinted about the purpose of his business. But his admirers' ears were

deaf. They sang his praises, told him what they had thought of his story at first sight, what they subsequently

thought, what their wives and families thought; but not one hint did they breathe of intention to pay him for

"Did I tell you how I first read your story?" Mr. Ford said. "Of course I didn't. I was coming west from New

York, and when the train stopped at Ogden, the trainboy on the new run brought aboard the current number

My God! Martin thought; you can travel in a Pullman while I starve for the paltry five dollars you owe me. A

wave of anger rushed over him. The wrong done him by the TRANSCONTINENTAL loomed colossal, for

strong upon him were all the dreary months of vain yearning, of hunger and privation, and his present hunger

awoke and gnawed at him, reminding him that he had eaten nothing since the day before, and little enough

then. For the moment he saw red. These creatures were not even robbers. They were sneakthieves. By lies

and broken promises they had tricked him out of his story. Well, he would show them. And a great resolve

surged into his will to the effect that he would not leave the office until he got his money. He remembered, if

he did not get it, that there was no way for him to go back to Oakland. He controlled himself with an effort,

They became more voluble than ever. Mr. Ford started anew to tell how he had first read "The Ring of Bells,"

and Mr. Ends at the same time was striving to repeat his niece's appreciation of "The Ring of Bells," said

"I'll tell you what I came for," Martin said finally. "To be paid for that story all of you like so well. Five

Mr. Ford, with an expression on his mobile features of mediate and happy acquiescence, started to reach for

his pocket, then turned suddenly to Mr. Ends, and said that he had left his money home. That Mr. Ends

resented this, was patent; and Martin saw the twitch of his arm as if to protect his trousers pocket. Martin

"I am sorry," said Mr. Ends, "but I paid the printer not an hour ago, and he took my ready change. It was

careless of me to be so short; but the bill was not yet due, and the printer's request, as a favor, to make an

Both men looked expectantly at Mr. White, but that gentleman laughed and shrugged his shoulders. His

conscience was clean at any rate. He had come into the TRANSCONTINENTAL to learn magazine

literature, instead of which he had principally learned finance. The TRANSCONTINENTAL owed him four

months' salary, and he knew that the printer must be appeased before the associate editor.

"It's rather absurd, Mr. Eden, to have caught us in this shape," Mr. Ford preambled airily. "All carelessness, I

assure you. But I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll mail you a check the first thing in the morning. You have Mr.

Yes, Mr. Ends had the address, and the check would be mailed the first thing in the morning. Martin's

knowledge of banks and checks was hazy, but he could see no reason why they should not give him the check

"Then it is understood, Mr. Eden, that we'll mail you the check to morrow?" Mr. Ford said.

"The unfortunate circumstances if you had chanced here any other day," Mr. Ford began suavely, only to be

interrupted by Mr. Ends, whose cranky eyes justified themselves in his shortness of temper.

"Mr. Ford has already explained the situation," he said with asperity. "And so have I. The check will be

"I also have explained," Martin broke in, "and I have explained that I want the money today."

He had felt his pulse quicken a trifle at the business manager's brusqueness, and upon him he kept an alert

eye, for it was in that gentleman's trousers pocket that he divined the TRANSCONTINENTAL'S ready cash

But at that moment, with an impatient movement, Mr. Ends turned as if about to leave the room. At the same

instant Martin sprang for him, clutching him by the throat with one hand in such fashion that Mr. Ends'

snowwhite beard, still maintaining its immaculate trimness, pointed ceilingward at an angle of fortyfive

degrees. To the horror of Mr. White and Mr. Ford, they saw their business manager shaken like an Astrakhan

"Dig up, you venerable discourager of rising young talent!" Martin exhorted. "Dig up, or I'll shake it out of

you, even if it's all in nickels." Then, to the two affrighted onlookers: "Keep away! If you interfere,

Mr. Ends was choking, and it was not until the grip on his throat was eased that he was able to signify his

acquiescence in the diggingup programme. All together, after repeated digs, its trousers pocket yielded four

An additional ten cents fell out. Martin counted the result of his raid a second time to make sure.

Mr. Ford did not wait, but ransacked his pockets, with the result of sixty cents.

"Sure that is all?" Martin demanded menacingly, possessing himself of it. "What have you got in your vest

In token of his good faith, Mr. Ford turned two of his pockets inside out. A strip of cardboard fell to the floor

from one of them. He recovered it and was in the act of returning it, when Martin cried:

"What's that? A ferry ticket? Here, give it to me. It's worth ten cents. I'll credit you with it. I've now got

four dollars and ninetyfive cents, including the ticket. Five cents is still due me."

He looked fiercely at Mr. White, and found that fragile creature in the act of handing him a nickel.

"Thank you," Martin said, addressing them collectively. "I wish you a good day."

Martin was elated so elated that when he recollected that THE HORNET owed him fifteen dollars for "The

Peri and the Pearl," he decided forthwith to go and collect it. But THE HORNET was run by a set of

cleanshaven, strapping young men, frank buccaneers who robbed everything and everybody, not excepting

one another. After some breakage of the office furniture, the editor (an excollege athlete), ably assisted by

the business manager, an advertising agent, and the porter, succeeded in removing Martin from the office and

"Come again, Mr. Eden; glad to see you any time," they laughed down at him from the landing above.

"Phew!" he murmured back. "The TRANSCONTINENTAL crowd were nanny goats, but you fellows are a

"I must say, Mr. Eden," the editor of THE HORNET called down, "that for a poet you can go some yourself.

"Where you learned that halfNelson," Martin answered. "Anyway, you're going to have a black eye."

"I hope your neck doesn't stiffen up," the editor wished solicitously: "What do you say we all go out and have

And robbers and robbed drank together, amicably agreeing that the battle was to the strong, and that the

fifteen dollars for "The Peri and the Pearl" belonged by right to THE HORNET'S editorial staff.

Arthur remained at the gate while Ruth climbed Maria's front steps. She heard the rapid click of the

typewriter, and when Martin let her in, found him on the last page of a manuscript. She had come to make

certain whether or not he would be at their table for Thanksgiving dinner; but before she could broach the

"Here, let me read you this," he cried, separating the carbon copies and running the pages of manuscript into

shape. "It's my latest, and different from anything I've done. It is so altogether different that I am almost

afraid of it, and yet I've a sneaking idea it is good. You be judge. It's an Hawaiian story. I've called it

His face was bright with the creative glow, though she shivered in the cold room and had been struck by the

coldness of his hands at greeting. She listened closely while he read, and though he from time to time had

"I'm afraid not," was the confession. "It's too strong for the magazines. But it's true, on my word it's true."

"But why do you persist in writing such things when you know they won't sell?" she went on inexorably.

"Yes, that's right; but the miserable story got away with me. I couldn't help writing it. It demanded to be

"But that character, that WikiWiki, why do you make him talk so roughly? Surely it will offend your

readers, and surely that is why the editors are justified in refusing your work."

"It is life," he replied bluntly. "It is real. It is true. And I must write life as I see it."

She made no answer, and for an awkward moment they sat silent. It was because he loved her that he did not

quite understand her, and she could not understand him because he was so large that he bulked beyond her

"Well, I've collected from the TRANSCONTINENTAL," he said in an effort to shift the conversation to a

more comfortable subject. The picture of the bewhiskered trio, as he had last seen them, mulcted of four

"Why, to dinner tomorrow. You know you said you'd recover your suit if you got that money."

"I forgot all about it," he said humbly. "You see, this morning the poundman got Maria's two cows and the

baby calf, and well, it happened that Maria didn't have any money, and so I had to recover her cows for her.

That's where the TRANSCONTINENTAL fiver went 'The Ring of Bells' went into the poundman's

Tears of disappointment and reproach glistened in her blue eyes, but she said nothing.

"Next Thanksgiving you'll have dinner with me in Delmonico's," he said cheerily; "or in London, or Paris, or

"I saw in the paper a few days ago," she announced abruptly, "that there had been several local appointments

He was compelled to admit that the call had come for him, but that he had declined it. "I was so sure I am

so sure of myself," he concluded. "A year from now I'll be earning more than a dozen men in the Railway

"Oh," was all she said, when he finished. She stood up, pulling at her gloves. "I must go, Martin. Arthur is

He took her in his arms and kissed her, but she proved a passive sweetheart. There was no tenseness in her

body, her arms did not go around him, and her lips met his without their wonted pressure.

She was angry with him, he concluded, as he returned from the gate. But why? It was unfortunate that the

poundman had gobbled Maria's cows. But it was only a stroke of fate. Nobody could be blamed for it. Nor

did it enter his head that he could have done aught otherwise than what he had done. Well, yes, he was to

blame a little, was his next thought, for having refused the call to the Railway Mail. And she had not liked

He turned at the head of the steps to meet the lettercarrier on his afternoon round. The ever recurrent fever

of expectancy assailed Martin as he took the bundle of long envelopes. One was not long. It was short and

thin, and outside was printed the address of THE NEW YORK OUTVIEW. He paused in the act of tearing

the envelope open. It could not be an acceptance. He had no manuscripts with that publication. Perhaps his

heart almost stood still at the wild thought perhaps they were ordering an article from him; but the next

It was a short, formal letter, signed by the office editor, merely informing him that an anonymous letter which

they had received was enclosed, and that he could rest assured the OUTVIEW'S staff never under any

The enclosed letter Martin found to be crudely printed by hand. It was a hotchpotch of illiterate abuse of

Martin, and of assertion that the "socalled Martin Eden" who was selling stories to magazines was no writer

at all, and that in reality he was stealing stories from old magazines, typing them, and sending them out as his

own. The envelope was postmarked "San Leandro." Martin did not require a second thought to discover the

author. Higginbotham's grammar, Higginbotham's colloquialisms, Higginbotham's mental quirks and

processes, were apparent throughout. Martin saw in every line, not the fine Italian hand, but the coarse

But why? he vainly questioned. What injury had he done Bernard Higginbotham? The thing was so

unreasonable, so wanton. There was no explaining it. In the course of the week a dozen similar letters were

forwarded to Martin by the editors of various Eastern magazines. The editors were behaving handsomely,

Martin concluded. He was wholly unknown to them, yet some of them had even been sympathetic. It was

evident that they detested anonymity. He saw that the malicious attempt to hurt him had failed. In fact, if

anything came of it, it was bound to be good, for at least his name had been called to the attention of a

number of editors. Sometime, perhaps, reading a submitted manuscript of his, they might remember him as

the fellow about whom they had received an anonymous letter. And who was to say that such a remembrance

It was about this time that Martin took a great slump in Maria's estimation. He found her in the kitchen one

morning groaning with pain, tears of weakness running down her cheeks, vainly endeavoring to put through a

large ironing. He promptly diagnosed her affliction as La Grippe, dosed her with hot whiskey (the remnants

in the bottles for which Brissenden was responsible), and ordered her to bed. But Maria was refractory. The

ironing had to be done, she protested, and delivered that night, or else there would be no food on the morrow

To her astonishment (and it was something that she never ceased from relating to her dying day), she saw

Martin Eden seize an iron from the stove and throw a fancy shirtwaist on the ironingboard. It was Kate

Flanagan's best Sunday waist, than whom there was no more exacting and fastidiously dressed woman in

Maria's world. Also, Miss Flanagan had sent special instruction that said waist must be delivered by that

night. As every one knew, she was keeping company with John Collins, the blacksmith, and, as Maria knew

privily, Miss Flanagan and Mr. Collins were going next day to Golden Gate Park. Vain was Maria's attempt

to rescue the garment. Martin guided her tottering footsteps to a chair, from where she watched him with

bulging eyes. In a quarter of the time it would have taken her she saw the shirtwaist safely ironed, and

"Your sprinkling is all wrong," he complained next. "Here, let me teach you how to sprinkle. Pressure is

He procured a packingcase from the woodpile in the cellar, fitted a cover to it, and raided the scrapiron the

Silva tribe was collecting for the junkman. With freshsprinkled garments in the box, covered with the board

"Now you watch me, Maria," he said, stripping off to his undershirt and gripping an iron that was what he

"An' when he feenish da iron' he washa da wools," as she described it afterward. "He say, 'Maria, you are da

greata fool. I showa you how to washa da wools,' an' he shows me, too. Ten minutes he maka da machine

Martin had learned the contrivance from Joe at the Shelly Hot Springs. The old wheelhub, fixed on the end

of the upright pole, constituted the plunger. Making this, in turn, fast to the spring pole attached to the

kitchen rafters, so that the hub played upon the woollens in the barrel, he was able, with one hand, thoroughly

"No more Maria washa da wools," her story always ended. "I maka da kids worka da pole an' da hub an' da

Nevertheless, by his masterly operation and improvement of her kitchenlaundry he fell an immense distance

in her regard. The glamour of romance with which her imagination had invested him faded away in the cold

light of fact that he was an exlaundryman. All his books, and his grand friends who visited him in carriages

or with countless bottles of whiskey, went for naught. He was, after all, a mere workingman, a member of her

own class and caste. He was more human and approachable, but, he was no longer mystery.

Martin's alienation from his family continued. Following upon Mr. Higginbotham's unprovoked attack, Mr.

Hermann von Schmidt showed his hand. The fortunate sale of several storiettes, some humorous verse, and a

few jokes gave Martin a temporary splurge of prosperity. Not only did he partially pay up his bills, but he had

sufficient balance left to redeem his black suit and wheel. The latter, by virtue of a twisted crankhanger,

required repairing, and, as a matter of friendliness with his future brotherinlaw, he sent it to Von Schmidt's

The afternoon of the same day Martin was pleased by the wheel being delivered by a small boy. Von Schmidt

was also inclined to be friendly, was Martin's conclusion from this unusual favor. Repaired wheels usually

had to be called for. But when he examined the wheel, he discovered no repairs had been made. A little later

in the day he telephoned his sister's betrothed, and learned that that person didn't want anything to do with

"Hermann von Schmidt," Martin answered cheerfully, "I've a good mind to come over and punch that Dutch

"You come to my shop," came the reply, "an' I'll send for the police. An' I'll put you through, too. Oh, I know

you, but you can't make no roughhouse with me. I don't want nothin' to do with the likes of you. You're a

loafer, that's what, an' I ain't asleep. You ain't goin' to do no spongin' off me just because I'm marryin' your

sister. Why don't you go to work an' earn an honest livin', eh? Answer me that."

Martin's philosophy asserted itself, dissipating his anger, and he hung up the receiver with a long whistle of

incredulous amusement. But after the amusement came the reaction, and he was oppressed by his loneliness.

Nobody understood him, nobody seemed to have any use for him, except Brissenden, and Brissenden had

Twilight was falling as Martin left the fruit store and turned homeward, his marketing on his arm. At the

corner an electric car had stopped, and at sight of a lean, familiar figure alighting, his heart leapt with joy. It

was Brissenden, and in the fleeting glimpse, ere the car started up, Martin noted the overcoat pockets, one

Brissenden gave no explanation of his long absence, nor did Martin pry into it. He was content to see his

friend's cadaverous face opposite him through the steam rising from a tumbler of toddy.

"I, too, have not been idle," Brissenden proclaimed, after hearing Martin's account of the work he had

He pulled a manuscript from his inside coat pocket and passed it to Martin, who looked at the title and

"Yes, that's it," Brissenden laughed. "Pretty good title, eh? 'Ephemera' it is the one word. And you're

responsible for it, what of your MAN, who is always the erected, the vitalized inorganic, the latest of the

ephemera, the creature of temperature strutting his little space on the thermometer. It got into my head and I

Martin's face, flushed at first, paled as he read on. It was perfect art. Form triumphed over substance, if

triumph it could be called where the last conceivable atom of substance had found expression in so perfect

construction as to make Martin's head swim with delight, to put passionate tears into his eyes, and to send

chills creeping up and down his back. It was a long poem of six or seven hundred lines, and it was a fantastic,

amazing, unearthly thing. It was terrific, impossible; and yet there it was, scrawled in black ink across the

sheets of paper. It dealt with man and his soulgropings in their ultimate terms, plumbing the abysses of

space for the testimony of remotest suns and rainbow spectrums. It was a mad orgy of imagination,

wassailing in the skull of a dying man who half sobbed under his breath and was quick with the wild flutter

of fading heartbeats. The poem swung in majestic rhythm to the cool tumult of interstellar conflict, to the

onset of starry hosts, to the impact of cold suns and the flaming up of nebular in the darkened void; and

through it all, unceasing and faint, like a silver shuttle, ran the frail, piping voice of man, a querulous chirp

"There is nothing like it in literature," Martin said, when at last he was able to speak. "It's wonderful!

wonderful! It has gone to my head. I am drunken with it. That great, infinitesimal question I can't shake it

out of my thoughts. That questing, eternal, ever recurring, thin little wailing voice of man is still ringing in

my ears. It is like the deadmarch of a gnat amid the trumpeting of elephants and the roaring of lions. It is

insatiable with microscopic desire. I now I'm making a fool of myself, but the thing has obsessed me. You are

I don't know what you are you are wonderful, that's all. But how do you do it? How do you do it?"

"I shall never write again. I am a dauber in clay. You have shown me the work of the real artificerartisan.

Genius! This is something more than genius. It transcends genius. It is truth gone mad. It is true, man, every

line of it. I wonder if you realize that, you dogmatist. Science cannot give you the lie. It is the truth of the

sneer, stamped out from the black iron of the Cosmos and interwoven with mighty rhythms of sound into a

fabric of splendor and beauty. And now I won't say another word. I am overwhelmed, crushed. Yes, I will,

Brissenden grinned. "There's not a magazine in Christendom that would dare to publish it you know that."

"I know nothing of the sort. I know there's not a magazine in Christendom that wouldn't jump at it. They don't

get things like that every day. That's no mere poem of the year. It's the poem of the century."

"Now don't get cynical," Martin exhorted. "The magazine editors are not wholly fatuous. I know that. And I'll

close with you on the bet. I'll wager anything you want that 'Ephemera' is accepted either on the first or

"There's just one thing that prevents me from taking you." Brissenden waited a moment. "The thing is big

the biggest I've ever done. I know that. It's my swan song. I am almighty proud of it. I worship it. It's better

than whiskey. It is what I dreamed of the great and perfect thing when I was a simple young man, with

sweet illusions and clean ideals. And I've got it, now, in my last grasp, and I'll not have it pawed over and

soiled by a lot of swine. No, I won't take the bet. It's mine. I made it, and I've shared it with you."

"But think of the rest of the world," Martin protested. "The function of beauty is joymaking."

"I'm not selfish." Brissenden grinned soberly in the way he had when pleased by the thing his thin lips were

In vain Martin strove to shake him from his decision. Martin told him that his hatred of the magazines was

rabid, fanatical, and that his conduct was a thousand times more despicable than that of the youth who burned

the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Under the storm of denunciation Brissenden complacently sipped his toddy

and affirmed that everything the other said was quite true, with the exception of the magazine editors. His

hatred of them knew no bounds, and he excelled Martin in denunciation when he turned upon them.

"I wish you'd type it for me," he said. "You know how a thousand times better than any stenographer. And

now I want to give you some advice." He drew a bulky manuscript from his outside coat pocket. "Here's your

'Shame of the Sun.' I've read it not once, but twice and three times the highest compliment I can pay you.

After what you've said about 'Ephemera' I must be silent. But this I will say: when 'The Shame of the Sun' is

published, it will make a hit. It will start a controversy that will be worth thousands to you just in

Martin laughed. "I suppose your next advice will be to submit it to the magazines."

"By all means no that is, if you want to see it in print. Offer it to the firstclass houses. Some publisher's

reader may be mad enough or drunk enough to report favorably on it. You've read the books. The meat of

them has been transmuted in the alembic of Martin Eden's mind and poured into 'The Shame of the Sun,' and

one day Martin Eden will be famous, and not the least of his fame will rest upon that work. So you must get a

Brissenden went home late that night; and just as he mounted the first step of the car, he swung suddenly

"Here, take this," he said. "I was out to the races today, and I had the right dope."

The bell clanged and the car pulled out, leaving Martin wondering as to the nature of the crinkly, greasy wad

he clutched in his hand. Back in his room he unrolled it and found a hundreddollar bill.

He did not scruple to use it. He knew his friend had always plenty of money, and he knew also, with

profound certitude, that his success would enable him to repay it. In the morning he paid every bill, gave

Maria three months' advance on the room, and redeemed every pledge at the pawnshop. Next he bought

Marian's wedding present, and simpler presents, suitable to Christmas, for Ruth and Gertrude. And finally, on

the balance remaining to him, he herded the whole Silva tribe down into Oakland. He was a winter late in

redeeming his promise, but redeemed it was, for the last, least Silva got a pair of shoes, as well as Maria

herself. Also, there were horns, and dolls, and toys of various sorts, and parcels and bundles of candies and

It was with this extraordinary procession trooping at his and Maria's heels into a confectioner's in quest if the

biggest candy cane ever made, that he encountered Ruth and her mother. Mrs. Morse was shocked. Even

Ruth was hurt, for she had some regard for appearances, and her lover, cheek by jowl with Maria, at the head

of that army of Portuguese ragamuffins, was not a pretty sight. But it was not that which hurt so much as

what she took to be his lack of pride and selfrespect. Further, and keenest of all, she read into the incident

the impossibility of his living down his workingclass origin. There was stigma enough in the fact of it, but

shamelessly to flaunt it in the face of the world her world was going too far. Though her engagement to

Martin had been kept secret, their long intimacy had not been unproductive of gossip; and in the shop,

glancing covertly at her lover and his following, had been several of her acquaintances. She lacked the easy

largeness of Martin and could not rise superior to her environment. She had been hurt to the quick, and her

sensitive nature was quivering with the shame of it. So it was, when Martin arrived later in the day, that he

kept her present in his breastpocket, deferring the giving of it to a more propitious occasion. Ruth in tears

passionate, angry tears was a revelation to him. The spectacle of her suffering convinced him that he had

been a brute, yet in the soul of him he could not see how nor why. It never entered his head to be ashamed of

those he knew, and to take the Silvas out to a Christmas treat could in no way, so it seemed to him, show lack

of consideration for Ruth. On the other hand, he did see Ruth's point of view, after she had explained it; and

he looked upon it as a feminine weakness, such as afflicted all women and the best of women.

"Come on, I'll show you the real dirt," Brissenden said to him, one evening in January.

They had dined together in San Francisco, and were at the Ferry Building, returning to Oakland, when the

whim came to him to show Martin the "real dirt." He turned and fled across the waterfront, a meagre

shadow in a flapping overcoat, with Martin straining to keep up with him. At a wholesale liquor store he

bought two gallondemijohns of old port, and with one in each hand boarded a Mission Street car, Martin at

If Ruth could see me now, was his thought, while he wondered as to what constituted the real dirt.

"Maybe nobody will be there," Brissenden said, when they dismounted and plunged off to the right into the

heart of the workingclass ghetto, south of Market Street. "In which case you'll miss what you've been

"Men, intelligent men, and not the gibbering nonentities I found you consorting with in that trader's den. You

read the books and you found yourself all alone. Well, I'm going to show you tonight some other men

"Not that I bother my head about their everlasting discussions," he said at the end of a block. "I'm not

interested in book philosophy. But you'll find these fellows intelligences and not bourgeois swine. But watch

"Hope Norton's there," he panted a little later, resisting Martin's effort to relieve him of the two demijohns.

"Norton's an idealist a Harvard man. Prodigious memory. Idealism led him to philosophic anarchy, and his

family threw him off. Father's a railroad president and many times millionnaire, but the son's starving in

Martin was little acquainted in San Francisco, and not at all south of Market; so he had no idea of where he

"Go ahead," he said; "tell me about them beforehand. What do they do for a living? How do they happen to

"Hope Hamilton's there." Brissenden paused and rested his hands. "StrawnHamilton's his name

hyphenated, you know comes of old Southern stock. He's a tramp laziest man I ever knew, though he's

clerking, or trying to, in a socialist cooperative store for six dollars a week. But he's a confirmed hobo.

Tramped into town. I've seen him sit all day on a bench and never a bite pass his lips, and in the evening,

when I invited him to dinner restaurant two blocks away have him say, 'Too much trouble, old man. Buy

me a package of cigarettes instead.' He was a Spencerian like you till Kreis turned him to materialistic

monism. I'll start him on monism if I can. Norton's another monist only he affirms naught but spirit. He can

"His rooms we're going to. One time professor fired from university usual story. A mind like a steel trap.

Makes his living any old way. I know he's been a street fakir when he was down. Unscrupulous. Rob a corpse

of a shroud anything. Difference between him and the bourgeoisie is that he robs without illusion. He'll

talk Nietzsche, or Schopenhauer, or Kant, or anything, but the only thing in this world, not excepting Mary,

that he really cares for, is his monism. Haeckel is his little tin god. The only way to insult him is to take a slap

"Here's the hangout." Brissenden rested his demijohn at the upstairs entrance, preliminary to the climb. It

was the usual two story corner building, with a saloon and grocery underneath. "The gang lives here got

the whole upstairs to themselves. But Kreis is the only one who has two rooms. Come on."

No lights burned in the upper hall, but Brissenden threaded the utter blackness like a familiar ghost. He

"There's one fellow Stevens a theosophist. Makes a pretty tangle when he gets going. Just now he's

dishwasher in a restaurant. Likes a good cigar. I've seen him eat in a tencent hashhouse and pay fifty

cents for the cigar he smoked afterward. I've got a couple in my pocket for him, if he shows up."

"And there's another fellow Parry an Australian, a statistician and a sporting encyclopaedia. Ask him the

grain output of Paraguay for 1903, or the English importation of sheetings into China for 1890, or at what

weight Jimmy Britt fought Battling Nelson, or who was welterweight champion of the United States in '68,

and you'll get the correct answer with the automatic celerity of a slot machine. And there's Andy, a

stonemason, has ideas on everything, a good chessplayer; and another fellow, Harry, a baker, red hot

socialist and strong union man. By the way, you remember Cooks' and Waiters' strike Hamilton was the

chap who organized that union and precipitated the strike planned it all out in advance, right here in Kreis's

rooms. Did it just for the fun of it, but was too lazy to stay by the union. Yet he could have risen high if he

wanted to. There's no end to the possibilities in that man if he weren't so insuperably lazy."

Brissenden advanced through the darkness till a thread of light marked the threshold of a door. A knock and

an answer opened it, and Martin found himself shaking hands with Kreis, a handsome brunette man, with

dazzling white teeth, a drooping black mustache, and large, flashing black eyes. Mary, a matronly young

blonde, was washing dishes in the little back room that served for kitchen and dining room. The front room

served as bedchamber and living room. Overhead was the week's washing, hanging in festoons so low that

Martin did not see at first the two men talking in a corner. They hailed Brissenden and his demijohns with

acclamation, and, on being introduced, Martin learned they were Andy and Parry. He joined them and

listened attentively to the description of a prizefight Parry had seen the night before; while Brissenden, in

his glory, plunged into the manufacture of a toddy and the serving of wine and whiskeyandsodas. At his

command, "Bring in the clan," Andy departed to go the round of the rooms for the lodgers.

"We're lucky that most of them are here," Brissenden whispered to Martin. "There's Norton and Hamilton;

come on and meet them. Stevens isn't around, I hear. I'm going to get them started on monism if I can. Wait

At first the conversation was desultory. Nevertheless Martin could not fail to appreciate the keen play of their

minds. They were men with opinions, though the opinions often clashed, and, though they were witty and

clever, they were not superficial. He swiftly saw, no matter upon what they talked, that each man applied the

correlation of knowledge and had also a deepseated and unified conception of society and the Cosmos.

Nobody manufactured their opinions for them; they were all rebels of one variety or another, and their lips

were strangers to platitudes. Never had Martin, at the Morses', heard so amazing a range of topics discussed.

There seemed no limit save time to the things they were alive to. The talk wandered from Mrs. Humphry

Ward's new book to Shaw's latest play, through the future of the drama to reminiscences of Mansfield. They

appreciated or sneered at the morning editorials, jumped from labor conditions in New Zealand to Henry

James and Brander Matthews, passed on to the German designs in the Far East and the economic aspect of

the Yellow Peril, wrangled over the German elections and Bebel's last speech, and settled down to local

politics, the latest plans and scandals in the union labor party administration, and the wires that were pulled to

bring about the Coast Seamen's strike. Martin was struck by the inside knowledge they possessed. They knew

what was never printed in the newspapers the wires and strings and the hidden hands that made the puppets

dance. To Martin's surprise, the girl, Mary, joined in the conversation, displaying an intelligence he had never

encountered in the few women he had met. They talked together on Swinburne and Rossetti, after which she

led him beyond his depth into the by paths of French literature. His revenge came when she defended

Maeterlinck and he brought into action the carefullythoughtout thesis of "The Shame of the Sun."

Several other men had dropped in, and the air was thick with tobacco smoke, when Brissenden waved the red

"Here's fresh meat for your axe, Kreis," he said; "a rosewhite youth with the ardor of a lover for Herbert

Kreis seemed to wake up and flash like some metallic, magnetic thing, while Norton looked at Martin

sympathetically, with a sweet, girlish smile, as much as to say that he would be amply protected.

Kreis began directly on Martin, but step by step Norton interfered, until he and Kreis were off and away in a

personal battle. Martin listened and fain would have rubbed his eyes. It was impossible that this should be,

much less in the labor ghetto south of Market. The books were alive in these men. They talked with fire and

enthusiasm, the intellectual stimulant stirring them as he had seen drink and anger stir other men. What he

heard was no longer the philosophy of the dry, printed word, written by halfmythical demigods like Kant

and Spencer. It was living philosophy, with warm, red blood, incarnated in these two men till its very features

worked with excitement. Now and again other men joined in, and all followed the discussion with cigarettes

Idealism had never attracted Martin, but the exposition it now received at the hands of Norton was a

revelation. The logical plausibility of it, that made an appeal to his intellect, seemed missed by Kreis and

Hamilton, who sneered at Norton as a metaphysician, and who, in turn, sneered back at them as

metaphysicians. PHENOMENON and NOUMENON were bandied back and forth. They charged him with

attempting to explain consciousness by itself. He charged them with wordjugglery, with reasoning from

words to theory instead of from facts to theory. At this they were aghast. It was the cardinal tenet of their

When Norton wandered into the intricacies of Kant, Kreis reminded him that all good little German

philosophies when they died went to Oxford. A little later Norton reminded them of Hamilton's Law of

Parsimony, the application of which they immediately claimed for every reasoning process of theirs. And

Martin hugged his knees and exulted in it all. But Norton was no Spencerian, and he, too, strove for Martin's

"You know Berkeley has never been answered," he said, looking directly at Martin. "Herbert Spencer came

the nearest, which was not very near. Even the stanchest of Spencer's followers will not go farther. I was

reading an essay of Saleeby's the other day, and the best Saleeby could say was that Herbert Spencer

"You know what Hume said?" Hamilton asked. Norton nodded, but Hamilton gave it for the benefit of the

rest. "He said that Berkeley's arguments admit of no answer and produce no conviction."

"In his, Hume's, mind," was the reply. "And Hume's mind was the same as yours, with this difference: he was

Norton was sensitive and excitable, though he never lost his head, while Kreis and Hamilton were like a pair

of coldblooded savages, seeking out tender places to prod and poke. As the evening grew late, Norton,

smarting under the repeated charges of being a metaphysician, clutching his chair to keep from jumping to his

feet, his gray eyes snapping and his girlish face grown harsh and sure, made a grand attack upon their

"All right, you Haeckelites, I may reason like a medicine man, but, pray, how do you reason? You have

nothing to stand on, you unscientific dogmatists with your positive science which you are always lugging

about into places it has no right to be. Long before the school of materialistic monism arose, the ground was

removed so that there could be no foundation. Locke was the man, John Locke. Two hundred years ago

more than that, even in his 'Essay concerning the Human Understanding,' he proved the non existence of

innate ideas. The best of it is that that is precisely what you claim. Tonight, again and again, you have

"And what does that mean? It means that you can never know ultimate reality. Your brains are empty when

you are born. Appearances, or phenomena, are all the content your minds can receive from your five senses.

Then noumena, which are not in your minds when you are born, have no way of getting in "

"You wait till I'm done," Norton shouted. "You can know only that much of the play and interplay of force

and matter as impinges in one way or another on our senses. You see, I am willing to admit, for the sake of

the argument, that matter exists; and what I am about to do is to efface you by your own argument. I can't do

it any other way, for you are both congenitally unable to understand a philosophic abstraction."

"And now, what do you know of matter, according to your own positive science? You know it only by its

phenomena, its appearances. You are aware only of its changes, or of such changes in it as cause changes in

your consciousness. Positive science deals only with phenomena, yet you are foolish enough to strive to be

ontologists and to deal with noumena. Yet, by the very definition of positive science, science is concerned

only with appearances. As somebody has said, phenomenal knowledge cannot transcend phenomena."

"You cannot answer Berkeley, even if you have annihilated Kant, and yet, perforce, you assume that

Berkeley is wrong when you affirm that science proves the nonexistence of God, or, as much to the point,

the existence of matter. You know I granted the reality of matter only in order to make myself intelligible

to your understanding. Be positive scientists, if you please; but ontology has no place in positive science, so

But it was time to catch the last ferryboat for Oakland, and Brissenden and Martin slipped out, leaving

Norton still talking and Kreis and Hamilton waiting to pounce on him like a pair of hounds as soon as he

"You have given me a glimpse of fairyland," Martin said on the ferryboat. "It makes life worth while to

meet people like that. My mind is all worked up. I never appreciated idealism before. Yet I can't accept it. I

know that I shall always be a realist. I am so made, I guess. But I'd like to have made a reply to Kreis and

Hamilton, and I think I'd have had a word or two for Norton. I didn't see that Spencer was damaged any. I'm

as excited as a child on its first visit to the circus. I see I must read up some more. I'm going to get hold of

Saleeby. I still think Spencer is unassailable, and next time I'm going to take a hand myself."

But Brissenden, breathing painfully, had dropped off to sleep, his chin buried in a scarf and resting on his

sunken chest, his body wrapped in the long overcoat and shaking to the vibration of the propellers.

The first thing Martin did next morning was to go counter both to Brissenden's advice and command. "The

Shame of the Sun" he wrapped and mailed to THE ACROPOLIS. He believed he could find magazine

publication for it, and he felt that recognition by the magazines would commend him to the bookpublishing

houses. "Ephemera" he likewise wrapped and mailed to a magazine. Despite Brissenden's prejudice against

the magazines, which was a pronounced mania with him, Martin decided that the great poem should see print.

He did not intend, however, to publish it without the other's permission. His plan was to get it accepted by

one of the high magazines, and, thus armed, again to wrestle with Brissenden for consent.

Martin began, that morning, a story which he had sketched out a number of weeks before and which ever

since had been worrying him with its insistent clamor to be created. Apparently it was to be a rattling sea

story, a tale of twentiethcentury adventure and romance, handling real characters, in a real world, under real

conditions. But beneath the swing and go of the story was to be something else something that the

superficial reader would never discern and which, on the other hand, would not diminish in any way the

interest and enjoyment for such a reader. It was this, and not the mere story, that impelled Martin to write it.

For that matter, it was always the great, universal motif that suggested plots to him. After having found such

a motif, he cast about for the particular persons and particular location in time and space wherewith and

wherein to utter the universal thing. "Overdue" was the title he had decided for it, and its length he believed

would not be more than sixty thousand words a bagatelle for him with his splendid vigor of production. On

this first day he took hold of it with conscious delight in the mastery of his tools. He no longer worried for

fear that the sharp, cutting edges should slip and mar his work. The long months of intense application and

study had brought their reward. He could now devote himself with sure hand to the larger phases of the thing

he shaped; and as he worked, hour after hour, he felt, as never before, the sure and cosmic grasp with which

he held life and the affairs of life. "Overdue" would tell a story that would be true of its particular characters

and its particular events; but it would tell, too, he was confident, great vital things that would be true of all

time, and all sea, and all life thanks to Herbert Spencer, he thought, leaning back for a moment from the

table. Ay, thanks to Herbert Spencer and to the masterkey of life, evolution, which Spencer had placed in

He was conscious that it was great stuff he was writing. "It will go! It will go!" was the refrain that kept,

sounding in his ears. Of course it would go. At last he was turning out the thing at which the magazines

would jump. The whole story worked out before him in lightning flashes. He broke off from it long enough to

write a paragraph in his notebook. This would be the last paragraph in "Overdue"; but so thoroughly was the

whole book already composed in his brain that he could write, weeks before he had arrived at the end, the end

itself. He compared the tale, as yet unwritten, with the tales of the seawriters, and he felt it to be

immeasurably superior. "There's only one man who could touch it," he murmured aloud, "and that's Conrad.

And it ought to make even him sit up and shake hands with me, and say, 'Well done, Martin, my boy.'"

He toiled on all day, recollecting, at the last moment, that he was to have dinner at the Morses'. Thanks to

Brissenden, his black suit was out of pawn and he was again eligible for dinner parties. Down town he

stopped off long enough to run into the library and search for Saleeby's books. He drew out 'The Cycle of

Life," and on the car turned to the essay Norton had mentioned on Spencer. As Martin read, he grew angry.

His face flushed, his jaw set, and unconsciously his hand clenched, unclenched, and clenched again as if he

were taking fresh grips upon some hateful thing out of which he was squeezing the life. When he left the car,

he strode along the sidewalk as a wrathful man will stride, and he rang the Morse bell with such viciousness

that it roused him to consciousness of his condition, so that he entered in good nature, smiling with

amusement at himself. No sooner, however, was he inside than a great depression descended upon him. He

fell from the height where he had been upborne all day on the wings of inspiration. "Bourgeois," "trader's

den" Brissenden's epithets repeated themselves in his mind. But what of that? he demanded angrily. He was

It seemed to him that he had never seen Ruth more beautiful, more spiritual and ethereal and at the same time

more healthy. There was color in her cheeks, and her eyes drew him again and again the eyes in which he

had first read immortality. He had forgotten immortality of late, and the trend of his scientific reading had

been away from it; but here, in Ruth's eyes, he read an argument without words that transcended all worded

arguments. He saw that in her eyes before which all discussion fled away, for he saw love there. And in his

The half hour he had with her, before they went in to dinner, left him supremely happy and supremely

satisfied with life. Nevertheless, at table, the inevitable reaction and exhaustion consequent upon the hard day

seized hold of him. He was aware that his eyes were tired and that he was irritable. He remembered it was at

this table, at which he now sneered and was so often bored, that he had first eaten with civilized beings in

what he had imagined was an atmosphere of high culture and refinement. He caught a glimpse of that pathetic

figure of him, so long ago, a selfconscious savage, sprouting sweat at every pore in an agony of

apprehension, puzzled by the bewildering minutiae of eating implements, tortured by the ogre of a servant,

striving at a leap to live at such dizzy social altitude, and deciding in the end to be frankly himself, pretending

He glanced at Ruth for reassurance, much in the same manner that a passenger, with sudden panic thought of

possible shipwreck, will strive to locate the life preservers. Well, that much had come out of it love and

Ruth. All the rest had failed to stand the test of the books. But Ruth and love had stood the test; for them he

found a biological sanction. Love was the most exalted expression of life. Nature had been busy designing

him, as she had been busy with all normal men, for the purpose of loving. She had spent ten thousand

centuries ay, a hundred thousand and a million centuries upon the task, and he was the best she could do.

She had made love the strongest thing in him, increased its power a myriad per cent with her gift of

imagination, and sent him forth into the ephemera to thrill and melt and mate. His hand sought Ruth's hand

beside him hidden by the table, and a warm pressure was given and received. She looked at him a swift

instant, and her eyes were radiant and melting. So were his in the thrill that pervaded him; nor did he realize

how much that was radiant and melting in her eyes had been aroused by what she had seen in his.

Across the table from him, catercornered, at Mr. Morse's right, sat Judge Blount, a local superior court

judge. Martin had met him a number of times and had failed to like him. He and Ruth's father were discussing

labor union politics, the local situation, and socialism, and Mr. Morse was endeavoring to twit Martin on the

latter topic. At last Judge Blount looked across the table with benignant and fatherly pity. Martin smiled to

"You'll grow out of it, young man," he said soothingly. "Time is the best cure for such youthful distempers."

He turned to Mr. Morse. "I do not believe discussion is good in such cases. It makes the patient obstinate."

"That is true," the other assented gravely. "But it is well to warn the patient occasionally of his condition."

Martin laughed merrily, but it was with an effort. The day had been too long, the day's effort too intense, and

"Undoubtedly you are both excellent doctors," he said; "but if you care a whit for the opinion of the patient,

let him tell you that you are poor diagnosticians. In fact, you are both suffering from the disease you think

you find in me. As for me, I am immune. The socialist philosophy that riots halfbaked in your veins has

"Clever, clever," murmured the judge. "An excellent ruse in controversy, to reverse positions."

"Out of your mouth." Martin's eyes were sparkling, but he kept control of himself. "You see, Judge, I've

heard your campaign speeches. By some henidical process henidical, by the way is a favorite word of mine

which nobody understands by some henidical process you persuade yourself that you believe in the

competitive system and the survival of the strong, and at the same time you indorse with might and main all

"Remember, I've heard your campaign speeches," Martin warned. "It's on record, your position on interstate

commerce regulation, on regulation of the railway trust and Standard Oil, on the conservation of the forests,

on a thousand and one restrictive measures that are nothing else than socialistic."

"Do you mean to tell me that you do not believe in regulating these various outrageous exercises of power?"

"That's not the point. I mean to tell you that you are a poor diagnostician. I mean to tell you that I am not

suffering from the microbe of socialism. I mean to tell you that it is you who are suffering from the

emasculating ravages of that same microbe. As for me, I am an inveterate opponent of socialism just as I am

an inveterate opponent of your own mongrel democracy that is nothing else than pseudosocialism

masquerading under a garb of words that will not stand the test of the dictionary."

"I am a reactionary so complete a reactionary that my position is incomprehensible to you who live in a

veiled lie of social organization and whose sight is not keen enough to pierce the veil. You make believe that

you believe in the survival of the strong and the rule of the strong. I believe. That is the difference. When I

was a trifle younger, a few months younger, I believed the same thing. You see, the ideas of you and

yours had impressed me. But merchants and traders are cowardly rulers at best; they grunt and grub all their

days in the trough of moneygetting, and I have swung back to aristocracy, if you please. I am the only

individualist in this room. I look to the state for nothing. I look only to the strong man, the man on horseback,

"Nietzsche was right. I won't take the time to tell you who Nietzsche was, but he was right. The world

belongs to the strong to the strong who are noble as well and who do not wallow in the swinetrough of

trade and exchange. The world belongs to the true nobleman, to the great blond beasts, to the

noncompromisers, to the 'yessayers.' And they will eat you up, you socialists who are afraid of socialism

and who think yourselves individualists. Your slavemorality of the meek and lowly will never save you.

Oh, it's all Greek, I know, and I won't bother you any more with it. But remember one thing. There aren't half

"I'm wrought up today," he said in an undertone. "All I want to do is to love, not talk."

"The man on horseback will arrive before that time," Martin retorted with good humor, and returned to Ruth.

But Mr. Morse was not content. He did not like the laziness and the disinclination for sober, legitimate work

of this prospective soninlaw of his, for whose ideas he had no respect and of whose nature he had no

understanding. So he turned the conversation to Herbert Spencer. Judge Blount ably seconded him, and

Martin, whose ears had pricked at the first mention of the philosopher's name, listened to the judge enunciate

a grave and complacent diatribe against Spencer. From time to time Mr. Morse glanced at Martin, as much as

"Chattering daws," Martin muttered under his breath, and went on talking with Ruth and Arthur.

But the long day and the "real dirt" of the night before were telling upon him; and, besides, still in his burnt

"What is the matter?" Ruth asked suddenly alarmed by the effort he was making to contain himself.

"There is no god but the Unknowable, and Herbert Spencer is its prophet," Judge Blount was saying at that

"A cheap judgment," he remarked quietly. "I heard it first in the City Hall Park, on the lips of a workingman

who ought to have known better. I have heard it often since, and each time the claptrap of it nauseates me.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself. To hear that great and noble man's name upon your lips is like finding

It was like a thunderbolt. Judge Blount glared at him with apoplectic countenance, and silence reigned. Mr.

Morse was secretly pleased. He could see that his daughter was shocked. It was what he wanted to do to

Ruth's hand sought Martin's beseechingly under the table, but his blood was up. He was inflamed by the

intellectual pretence and fraud of those who sat in the high places. A Superior Court Judge! It was only

several years before that he had looked up from the mire at such glorious entities and deemed them gods.

Judge Blount recovered himself and attempted to go on, addressing himself to Martin with an assumption of

politeness that the latter understood was for the benefit of the ladies. Even this added to his anger. Was there

"You can't discuss Spencer with me," he cried. "You do not know any more about Spencer than do his own

countrymen. But it is no fault of yours, I grant. It is just a phase of the contemptible ignorance of the times. I

ran across a sample of it on my way here this evening. I was reading an essay by Saleeby on Spencer. You

should read it. It is accessible to all men. You can buy it in any bookstore or draw it from the public library.

You would feel ashamed of your paucity of abuse and ignorance of that noble man compared with what

Saleeby has collected on the subject. It is a record of shame that would shame your shame."

"'The philosopher of the halfeducated,' he was called by an academic Philosopher who was not worthy to

pollute the atmosphere he breathed. I don't think you have read ten pages of Spencer, but there have been

critics, assumably more intelligent than you, who have read no more than you of Spencer, who publicly

challenged his followers to adduce one single idea from all his writings from Herbert Spencer's writings,

the man who has impressed the stamp of his genius over the whole field of scientific research and modern

thought; the father of psychology; the man who revolutionized pedagogy, so that today the child of the

French peasant is taught the three R's according to principles laid down by him. And the little gnats of men

sting his memory when they get their very bread and butter from the technical application of his ideas. What

little of worth resides in their brains is largely due to him. It is certain that had he never lived, most of what is

"And yet a man like Principal Fairbanks of Oxford a man who sits in an even higher place than you, Judge

Blount has said that Spencer will be dismissed by posterity as a poet and dreamer rather than a thinker.

Yappers and blatherskites, the whole brood of them! '"First Principles" is not wholly destitute of a certain

literary power,' said one of them. And others of them have said that he was an industrious plodder rather than

Martin ceased abruptly, in a dead silence. Everybody in Ruth's family looked up to Judge Blount as a man of

power and achievement, and they were horrified at Martin's outbreak. The remainder of the dinner passed like

a funeral, the judge and Mr. Morse confining their talk to each other, and the rest of the conversation being

extremely desultory. Then afterward, when Ruth and Martin were alone, there was a scene.

But his anger still smouldered, and he kept muttering, "The beasts! The beasts!"

"I don't care whether it was true or not," she insisted. "There are certain bounds of decency, and you had no

"Then where did Judge Blount get the license to assault truth?" Martin demanded. "Surely to assault truth is a

more serious misdemeanor than to insult a pygmy personality such as the judge's. He did worse than that. He

blackened the name of a great, noble man who is dead. Oh, the beasts! The beasts!"

His complex anger flamed afresh, and Ruth was in terror of him. Never had she seen him so angry, and it was

all mystified and unreasonable to her comprehension. And yet, through her very terror ran the fibres of

fascination that had drawn and that still drew her to him that had compelled her to lean towards him, and, in

that mad, culminating moment, lay her hands upon his neck. She was hurt and outraged by what had taken

place, and yet she lay in his arms and quivered while he went on muttering, "The beasts! The beasts!" And

she still lay there when he said: "I'll not bother your table again, dear. They do not like me, and it is wrong of

me to thrust my objectionable presence upon them. Besides, they are just as objectionable to me. Faugh!

They are sickening. And to think of it, I dreamed in my innocence that the persons who sat in the high places,

who lived in fine houses and had educations and bank accounts, were worth while!

So spoke Brissenden, faint from a hemorrhage of half an hour before the second hemorrhage in three days.

The perennial whiskey glass was in his hands, and he drained it with shaking fingers.

"Outsiders are allowed fiveminute speeches," the sick man urged. "Get up and spout. Tell them why you

don't want socialism. Tell them what you think about them and their ghetto ethics. Slam Nietzsche into them

and get walloped for your pains. Make a scrap of it. It will do them good. Discussion is what they want, and

what you want, too. You see, I'd like to see you a socialist before I'm gone. It will give you a sanction for

your existence. It is the one thing that will save you in the time of disappointment that is coming to you."

"I never can puzzle out why you, of all men, are a socialist," Martin pondered. "You detest the crowd so.

Surely there is nothing in the canaille to recommend it to your aesthetic soul." He pointed an accusing finger

at the whiskey glass which the other was refilling. "Socialism doesn't seem to save you."

"I'm very sick," was the answer. "With you it is different. You have health and much to live for, and you must

be handcuffed to life somehow. As for me, you wonder why I am a socialist. I'll tell you. It is because

Socialism is inevitable; because the present rotten and irrational system cannot endure; because the day is

past for your man on horseback. The slaves won't stand for it. They are too many, and willynilly they'll drag

down the wouldbe equestrian before ever he gets astride. You can't get away from them, and you'll have to

swallow the whole slavemorality. It's not a nice mess, I'll allow. But it's been abrewing and swallow it you

must. You are antediluvian anyway, with your Nietzsche ideas. The past is past, and the man who says

history repeats itself is a liar. Of course I don't like the crowd, but what's a poor chap to do? We can't have the

man on horseback, and anything is preferable to the timid swine that now rule. But come on, anyway. I'm

loaded to the guards now, and if I sit here any longer, I'll get drunk. And you know the doctor says damn

It was Sunday night, and they found the small hall packed by the Oakland socialists, chiefly members of the

working class. The speaker, a clever Jew, won Martin's admiration at the same time that he aroused his

antagonism. The man's stooped and narrow shoulders and weazened chest proclaimed him the true child of

the crowded ghetto, and strong on Martin was the agelong struggle of the feeble, wretched slaves against the

lordly handful of men who had ruled over them and would rule over them to the end of time. To Martin this

withered wisp of a creature was a symbol. He was the figure that stood forth representative of the whole

miserable mass of weaklings and inefficients who perished according to biological law on the ragged

confines of life. They were the unfit. In spite of their cunning philosophy and of their antlike proclivities for

cooperation, Nature rejected them for the exceptional man. Out of the plentiful spawn of life she flung from

her prolific hand she selected only the best. It was by the same method that men, aping her, bred racehorses

and cucumbers. Doubtless, a creator of a Cosmos could have devised a better method; but creatures of this

particular Cosmos must put up with this particular method. Of course, they could squirm as they perished, as

the socialists squirmed, as the speaker on the platform and the perspiring crowd were squirming even now as

they counselled together for some new device with which to minimize the penalties of living and outwit the

So Martin thought, and so he spoke when Brissenden urged him to give them hell. He obeyed the mandate,

walking up to the platform, as was the custom, and addressing the chairman. He began in a low voice,

haltingly, forming into order the ideas which had surged in his brain while the Jew was speaking. In such

meetings five minutes was the time allotted to each speaker; but when Martin's five minutes were up, he was

in full stride, his attack upon their doctrines but half completed. He had caught their interest, and the audience

urged the chairman by acclamation to extend Martin's time. They appreciated him as a foeman worthy of

their intellect, and they listened intently, following every word. He spoke with fire and conviction, mincing

no words in his attack upon the slaves and their morality and tactics and frankly alluding to his hearers as the

slaves in question. He quoted Spencer and Malthus, and enunciated the biological law of development.

"And so," he concluded, in a swift resume, "no state composed of the slavetypes can endure. The old law of

development still holds. In the struggle for existence, as I have shown, the strong and the progeny of the

strong tend to survive, while the weak and the progeny of the weak are crushed and tend to perish. The result

is that the strong and the progeny of the strong survive, and, so long as the struggle obtains, the strength of

each generation increases. That is development. But you slaves it is too bad to be slaves, I grant but you

slaves dream of a society where the law of development will be annulled, where no weaklings and

inefficients will perish, where every inefficient will have as much as he wants to eat as many times a day as

he desires, and where all will marry and have progeny the weak as well as the strong. What will be the

result? No longer will the strength and lifevalue of each generation increase. On the contrary, it will

diminish. There is the Nemesis of your slave philosophy. Your society of slaves of, by, and for, slaves

must inevitably weaken and go to pieces as the life which composes it weakens and goes to pieces.

"Remember, I am enunciating biology and not sentimental ethics. No state of slaves can stand "

"And how about it?" Martin retorted. "The thirteen colonies threw off their rulers and formed the Republic

socalled. The slaves were their own masters. There were no more masters of the sword. But you couldn't get

along without masters of some sort, and there arose a new set of masters not the great, virile, noble men,

but the shrewd and spidery traders and moneylenders. And they enslaved you over again but not frankly,

as the true, noble men would do with weight of their own right arms, but secretly, by spidery machinations

and by wheedling and cajolery and lies. They have purchased your slave judges, they have debauched your

slave legislatures, and they have forced to worse horrors than chattel slavery your slave boys and girls. Two

million of your children are toiling today in this traderoligarchy of the United States. Ten millions of you

"But to return. I have shown that no society of slaves can endure, because, in its very nature, such society

must annul the law of development. No sooner can a slave society be organized than deterioration sets in. It is

easy for you to talk of annulling the law of development, but where is the new law of development that will

Martin took his seat amidst an uproar of voices. A score of men were on their feet clamoring for recognition

from the chair. And one by one, encouraged by vociferous applause, speaking with fire and enthusiasm and

excited gestures, they replied to the attack. It was a wild night but it was wild intellectually, a battle of

ideas. Some strayed from the point, but most of the speakers replied directly to Martin. They shook him with

lines of thought that were new to him; and gave him insights, not into new biological laws, but into new

applications of the old laws. They were too earnest to be always polite, and more than once the chairman

It chanced that a cub reporter sat in the audience, detailed there on a day dull of news and impressed by the

urgent need of journalism for sensation. He was not a bright cub reporter. He was merely facile and glib. He

was too dense to follow the discussion. In fact, he had a comfortable feeling that he was vastly superior to

these wordy maniacs of the working class. Also, he had a great respect for those who sat in the high places

and dictated the policies of nations and newspapers. Further, he had an ideal, namely, of achieving that

excellence of the perfect reporter who is able to make something even a great deal out of nothing.

He did not know what all the talk was about. It was not necessary. Words like REVOLUTION gave him his

cue. Like a paleontologist, able to reconstruct an entire skeleton from one fossil bone, he was able to

reconstruct a whole speech from the one word REVOLUTION. He did it that night, and he did it well; and

since Martin had made the biggest stir, he put it all into his mouth and made him the archanarch of the

show, transforming his reactionary individualism into the most lurid, redshirt socialist utterance. The cub

reporter was an artist, and it was a large brush with which he laid on the local color wildeyed longhaired

men, neurasthenia and degenerate types of men, voices shaken with passion, clenched fists raised on high,

and all projected against a background of oaths, yells, and the throaty rumbling of angry men.

Over the coffee, in his little room, Martin read next morning's paper. It was a novel experience to find himself

headlined, on the first page at that; and he was surprised to learn that he was the most notorious leader of the

Oakland socialists. He ran over the violent speech the cub reporter had constructed for him, and, though at

first he was angered by the fabrication, in the end he tossed the paper aside with a laugh.

"Either the man was drunk or criminally malicious," he said that afternoon, from his perch on the bed, when

"But what do you care?" Brissenden asked. "Surely you don't desire the approval of the bourgeois swine that

"No, I really don't care for their approval, not a whit. On the other hand, it's very likely to make my relations

with Ruth's family a trifle awkward. Her father always contended I was a socialist, and this miserable stuff

will clinch his belief. Not that I care for his opinion but what's the odds? I want to read you what I've been

He was reading aloud when Maria thrust open the door and ushered in a young man in a natty suit who

glanced briskly about him, noting the oilburner and the kitchen in the corner before his gaze wandered on to

Martin made room for the young man on the bed and waited for him to broach his business.

"I heard you speak last night, Mr. Eden, and I've come to interview you," he began.

"A brother socialist?" the reporter asked, with a quick glance at Brissenden that appraised the colorvalue of

"Why don't you poke him?" Brissenden asked. "I'd give a thousand dollars to have my lungs back for five

The cub reporter was a trifle perplexed by this talking over him and around him and at him. But he had been

commended for his brilliant description of the socialist meeting and had further been detailed to get a

personal interview with Martin Eden, the leader of the organized menace to society.

"You do not object to having your picture taken, Mr. Eden?" he said. "I've a staff photographer outside, you

see, and he says it will be better to take you right away before the sun gets lower. Then we can have the

"I guess I'm getting old," was the answer. "I know I ought, but I really haven't the heart. It doesn't seem to

"It's worth considering," Martin replied; "but it doesn't seem worth while enough to rouse sufficient energy in

me. You see, it does take energy to give a fellow a poking. Besides, what does it matter?"

"That's right that's the way to take it," the cub announced airily, though he had already begun to glance

"But it wasn't true, not a word of what he wrote," Martin went on, confining his attention to Brissenden.

"It was just in a general way a description, you understand," the cub ventured, "and besides, it's good

"Let me see where were you born, Mr. Eden?" the cub asked, assuming an air of expectant attention.

"That is sufficient for me." The cub was trying not to look worried. "No decent reporter needs to bother with

"That was sufficient for last night." But Brissenden was not a disciple of quietism, and he changed his

attitude abruptly. "Martin, if you don't poke him, I'll do it myself, if I fall dead on the floor the next moment."

The next instant Martin was seated on the edge of the bed with the cub face downward across his knees.

"Now don't bite," Martin warned, "or else I'll have to punch your face. It would be a pity, for it is such a

His uplifted hand descended, and thereafter rose and fell in a swift and steady rhythm. The cub struggled and

cursed and squirmed, but did not offer to bite. Brissenden looked on gravely, though once he grew excited

"Sorry my hand played out," Martin said, when at last he desisted. "It is quite numb."

"I'll have you arrested for this," he snarled, tears of boyish indignation running down his flushed cheeks. "I'll

"The pretty thing," Martin remarked. "He doesn't realize that he has entered upon the downward path. It is not

honest, it is not square, it is not manly, to tell lies about one's fellowcreatures the way he has done, and he

"Yes, to me whom he has maligned and injured. My grocery will undoubtedly refuse me credit now. The

worst of it is that the poor boy will keep on this way until he deteriorates into a firstclass newspaper man

"But there is yet time," quoth Brissenden. "Who knows but what you may prove the humble instrument to

save him. Why didn't you let me swat him just once? I'd like to have had a hand in it."

"I'll have you arrested, the pair of you, you bbbig brutes," sobbed the erring soul.

"No, his mouth is too pretty and too weak." Martin shook his head lugubriously. "I'm afraid I've numbed my

hand in vain. The young man cannot reform. He will become eventually a very great and successful

With that the cub passed out the door in trepidation to the last for fear that Brissenden would hit him in the

In the next morning's paper Martin learned a great deal more about himself that was new to him. "We are the

sworn enemies of society," he found himself quoted as saying in a column interview. "No, we are not

anarchists but socialists." When the reporter pointed out to him that there seemed little difference between the

two schools, Martin had shrugged his shoulders in silent affirmation. His face was described as bilaterally

asymmetrical, and various other signs of degeneration were described. Especially notable were his thuglike

He learned, also, that he spoke nightly to the workmen in the City Hall Park, and that among the anarchists

and agitators that there inflamed the minds of the people he drew the largest audiences and made the most

revolutionary speeches. The cub painted a highlight picture of his poor little room, its oilstove and the one

chair, and of the death'shead tramp who kept him company and who looked as if he had just emerged from

The cub had been industrious. He had scurried around and nosed out Martin's family history, and procured a

photograph of Higginbotham's Cash Store with Bernard Higginbotham himself standing out in front. That

gentleman was depicted as an intelligent, dignified businessman who had no patience with his

brotherinlaw's socialistic views, and no patience with the brotherinlaw, either, whom he was quoted as

characterizing as a lazy goodfornothing who wouldn't take a job when it was offered to him and who

would go to jail yet. Hermann Yon Schmidt, Marian's husband, had likewise been interviewed. He had called

Martin the black sheep of the family and repudiated him. "He tried to sponge off of me, but I put a stop to

that good and quick," Von Schmidt had said to the reporter. "He knows better than to come bumming around

This time Martin was genuinely angry. Brissenden looked upon the affair as a good joke, but he could not

console Martin, who knew that it would be no easy task to explain to Ruth. As for her father, he knew that he

must be overjoyed with what had happened and that he would make the most of it to break off the

engagement. How much he would make of it he was soon to realize. The afternoon mail brought a letter from

Ruth. Martin opened it with a premonition of disaster, and read it standing at the open door when he had

received it from the postman. As he read, mechanically his hand sought his pocket for the tobacco and brown

paper of his old cigarette days. He was not aware that the pocket was empty or that he had even reached for

It was not a passionate letter. There were no touches of anger in it. But all the way through, from the first

sentence to the last, was sounded the note of hurt and disappointment. She had expected better of him. She

had thought he had got over his youthful wildness, that her love for him had been sufficiently worth while to

enable him to live seriously and decently. And now her father and mother had taken a firm stand and

commanded that the engagement be broken. That they were justified in this she could not but admit. Their

relation could never be a happy one. It had been unfortunate from the first. But one regret she voiced in the

whole letter, and it was a bitter one to Martin. "If only you had settled down to some position and attempted

to make something of yourself," she wrote. "But it was not to be. Your past life had been too wild and

irregular. I can understand that you are not to be blamed. You could act only according to your nature and

your early training. So I do not blame you, Martin. Please remember that. It was simply a mistake. As father

and mother have contended, we were not made for each other, and we should both be happy because it was

discovered not too late." . . "There is no use trying to see me," she said toward the last. "It would be an

unhappy meeting for both of us, as well as for my mother. I feel, as it is, that I have caused her great pain and

He read it through to the end, carefully, a second time, then sat down and replied. He outlined the remarks he

had uttered at the socialist meeting, pointing out that they were in all ways the converse of what the

newspaper had put in his mouth. Toward the end of the letter he was God's own lover pleading passionately

for love. "Please answer," he said, "and in your answer you have to tell me but one thing. Do you love me?

But no answer came the next day, nor the next. "Overdue" lay untouched upon the table, and each day the

heap of returned manuscripts under the table grew larger. For the first time Martin's glorious sleep was

interrupted by insomnia, and he tossed through long, restless nights. Three times he called at the Morse

home, but was turned away by the servant who answered the bell. Brissenden lay sick in his hotel, too feeble

to stir out, and, though Martin was with him often, he did not worry him with his troubles.

For Martin's troubles were many. The aftermath of the cub reporter's deed was even wider than Martin had

anticipated. The Portuguese grocer refused him further credit, while the greengrocer, who was an American

and proud of it, had called him a traitor to his country and refused further dealings with him carrying his

patriotism to such a degree that he cancelled Martin's account and forbade him ever to attempt to pay it. The

talk in the neighborhood reflected the same feeling, and indignation against Martin ran high. No one would

have anything to do with a socialist traitor. Poor Maria was dubious and frightened, but she remained loyal.

The children of the neighborhood recovered from the awe of the grand carriage which once had visited

Martin, and from safe distances they called him "hobo" and "bum." The Silva tribe, however, stanchly

defended him, fighting more than one pitched battle for his honor, and black eyes and bloody noses became

Once, Martin met Gertrude on the street, down in Oakland, and learned what he knew could not be otherwise

that Bernard Higginbotham was furious with him for having dragged the family into public disgrace, and

"Why don't you go away, Martin?" Gertrude had begged. "Go away and get a job somewhere and steady

Martin shook his head, but gave no explanations. How could he explain? He was appalled at the awful

intellectual chasm that yawned between him and his people. He could never cross it and explain to them his

position, the Nietzschean position, in regard to socialism. There were not words enough in the English

language, nor in any language, to make his attitude and conduct intelligible to them. Their highest concept of

right conduct, in his case, was to get a job. That was their first word and their last. It constituted their whole

lexicon of ideas. Get a job! Go to work! Poor, stupid slaves, he thought, while his sister talked. Small wonder

the world belonged to the strong. The slaves were obsessed by their own slavery. A job was to them a golden

He shook his head again, when Gertrude offered him money, though he knew that within the day he would

"Don't come near Bernard now," she admonished him. "After a few months, when he is cooled down, if you

want to, you can get the job of drivin' deliverywagon for him. Any time you want me, just send for me an'

She went away weeping audibly, and he felt a pang of sorrow shoot through him at sight of her heavy body

and uncouth gait. As he watched her go, the Nietzschean edifice seemed to shake and totter. The slaveclass

in the abstract was all very well, but it was not wholly satisfactory when it was brought home to his own

family. And yet, if there was ever a slave trampled by the strong, that slave was his sister Gertrude. He

grinned savagely at the paradox. A fine Nietzscheman he was, to allow his intellectual concepts to be

shaken by the first sentiment or emotion that strayed along ay, to be shaken by the slavemorality itself, for

that was what his pity for his sister really was. The true noble men were above pity and compassion. Pity and

compassion had been generated in the subterranean barracoons of the slaves and were no more than the agony

"Overdue" still continued to lie forgotten on the table. Every manuscript that he had had out now lay under

the table. Only one manuscript he kept going, and that was Brissenden's "Ephemera." His bicycle and black

suit were again in pawn, and the typewriter people were once more worrying about the rent. But such things

no longer bothered him. He was seeking a new orientation, and until that was found his life must stand still.

After several weeks, what he had been waiting for happened. He met Ruth on the street. It was true, she was

accompanied by her brother, Norman, and it was true that they tried to ignore him and that Norman attempted

"If you interfere with my sister, I'll call an officer," Norman threatened. "She does not wish to speak with

"If you persist, you'll have to call that officer, and then you'll get your name in the papers," Martin answered

grimly. "And now, get out of my way and get the officer if you want to. I'm going to talk with Ruth."

"It is." She spoke in a low, firm voice and with deliberation. "It is of my own free will. You have disgraced

me so that I am ashamed to meet my friends. They are all talking about me, I know. That is all I can tell you.

"Friends! Gossip! Newspaper misreports! Surely such things are not stronger than love! I can only believe

"After what has passed?" she said faintly. "Martin, you do not know what you are saying. I am not common."

"You see, she doesn't want to have anything to do with you," Norman blurted out, starting on with her.

Martin stood aside and let them pass, fumbling unconsciously in his coat pocket for the tobacco and brown

It was a long walk to North Oakland, but it was not until he went up the steps and entered his room that he

knew he had walked it. He found himself sitting on the edge of the bed and staring about him like an

awakened somnambulist. He noticed "Overdue" lying on the table and drew up his chair and reached for his

pen. There was in his nature a logical compulsion toward completeness. Here was something undone. It had

been deferred against the completion of something else. Now that something else had been finished, and he

would apply himself to this task until it was finished. What he would do next he did not know. All that he did

know was that a climacteric in his life had been attained. A period had been reached, and he was rounding it

off in workmanlike fashion. He was not curious about the future. He would soon enough find out what it

held in store for him. Whatever it was, it did not matter. Nothing seemed to matter.

For five days he toiled on at "Overdue," going nowhere, seeing nobody, and eating meagrely. On the morning

of the sixth day the postman brought him a thin letter from the editor of THE PARTHENON. A glance told

him that "Ephemera" was accepted. "We have submitted the poem to Mr. Cartwright Bruce," the editor went

on to say, "and he has reported so favorably upon it that we cannot let it go. As an earnest of our pleasure in

publishing the poem, let me tell you that we have set it for the August number, our July number being already

made up. Kindly extend our pleasure and our thanks to Mr. Brissenden. Please send by return mail his

photograph and biographical data. If our honorarium is unsatisfactory, kindly telegraph us at once and state

Since the honorarium they had offered was three hundred and fifty dollars, Martin thought it not worth while

to telegraph. Then, too, there was Brissenden's consent to be gained. Well, he had been right, after all. Here

was one magazine editor who knew real poetry when he saw it. And the price was splendid, even though it

was for the poem of a century. As for Cartwright Bruce, Martin knew that he was the one critic for whose

Martin rode down town on an electric car, and as he watched the houses and crossstreets slipping by he was

aware of a regret that he was not more elated over his friend's success and over his own signal victory. The

one critic in the United States had pronounced favorably on the poem, while his own contention that good

stuff could find its way into the magazines had proved correct. But enthusiasm had lost its spring in him, and

he found that he was more anxious to see Brissenden than he was to carry the good news. The acceptance of

THE PARTHENON had recalled to him that during his five days' devotion to "Overdue" he had not heard

from Brissenden nor even thought about him. For the first time Martin realized the daze he had been in, and

he felt shame for having forgotten his friend. But even the shame did not burn very sharply. He was numb to

emotions of any sort save the artistic ones concerned in the writing of "Overdue." So far as other affairs were

concerned, he had been in a trance. For that matter, he was still in a trance. All this life through which the

electric car whirred seemed remote and unreal, and he would have experienced little interest and less shook if

the great stone steeple of the church he passed had suddenly crumbled to mortardust upon his head.

At the hotel he hurried up to Brissenden's room, and hurried down again. The room was empty. All luggage

"Did Mr. Brissenden leave any address?" he asked the clerk, who looked at him curiously for a moment.

"Why, the papers were full of it. He was found dead in bed. Suicide. Shot himself through the head."

"Is he buried yet?" Martin seemed to hear his voice, like some one else's voice, from a long way off, asking

"No. The body was shipped East after the inquest. Lawyers engaged by his people saw to the arrangements."

At the corner he stepped into the Western Union and sent a telegram to THE PARTHENON, advising them

to proceed with the publication of the poem. He had in his pocket but five cents with which to pay his carfare

Once in his room, he resumed his writing. The days and nights came and went, and he sat at his table and

wrote on. He went nowhere, save to the pawnbroker, took no exercise, and ate methodically when he was

hungry and had something to cook, and just as methodically went without when he had nothing to cook.

Composed as the story was, in advance, chapter by chapter, he nevertheless saw and developed an opening

that increased the power of it, though it necessitated twenty thousand additional words. It was not that there

was any vital need that the thing should be well done, but that his artistic canons compelled him to do it well.

He worked on in the daze, strangely detached from the world around him, feeling like a familiar ghost among

these literary trappings of his former life. He remembered that some one had said that a ghost was the spirit of

a man who was dead and who did not have sense enough to know it; and he paused for the moment to wonder

Came the day when "Overdue" was finished. The agent of the type writer firm had come for the machine,

and he sat on the bed while Martin, on the one chair, typed the last pages of the final chapter. "Finis," he

wrote, in capitals, at the end, and to him it was indeed finis. He watched the typewriter carried out the door

with a feeling of relief, then went over and lay down on the bed. He was faint from hunger. Food had not

passed his lips in thirty six hours, but he did not think about it. He lay on his back, with closed eyes, and did

not think at all, while the daze or stupor slowly welled up, saturating his consciousness. Half in delirium, he

began muttering aloud the lines of an anonymous poem Brissenden had been fond of quoting to him. Maria,

listening anxiously outside his door, was perturbed by his monotonous utterance. The words in themselves

were not significant to her, but the fact that he was saying them was. "I have done," was the burden of the

"'I have done Put by the lute. Song and singing soon are over As the airy shades that hover In among the

purple clover. I have done Put by the lute. Once I sang as early thrushes Sing among the dewy bushes; Now

I'm mute. I am like a weary linnet, For my throat has no song in it; I have had my singing minute. I have

Maria could stand it no longer, and hurried away to the stove, where she filled a quartbowl with soup,

putting into it the lion's share of chopped meat and vegetables which her ladle scraped from the bottom of the

pot. Martin roused himself and sat up and began to eat, between spoonfuls reassuring Maria that he had not

After she left him he sat drearily, with drooping shoulders, on the edge of the bed, gazing about him with

lacklustre eyes that saw nothing until the torn wrapper of a magazine, which had come in the morning's mail

and which lay unopened, shot a gleam of light into his darkened brain. It is THE PARTHENON, he thought,

the August PARTHENON, and it must contain "Ephemera." If only Brissenden were here to see!

He was turning the pages of the magazine, when suddenly he stopped. "Ephemera" had been featured, with

gorgeous headpiece and Beardsleylike margin decorations. On one side of the headpiece was

Brissenden's photograph, on the other side was the photograph of Sir John Value, the British Ambassador. A

preliminary editorial note quoted Sir John Value as saying that there were no poets in America, and the

publication of "Ephemera" was THE PARTHENON'S. "There, take that, Sir John Value!" Cartwright Bruce

was described as the greatest critic in America, and he was quoted as saying that "Ephemera" was the greatest

poem ever written in America. And finally, the editor's foreword ended with: "We have not yet made up our

minds entirely as to the merits of "Ephemera"; perhaps we shall never be able to do so. But we have read it

often, wondering at the words and their arrangement, wondering where Mr. Brissenden got them, and how he

"Pretty good thing you died, Briss, old man," Martin murmured, letting the magazine slip between his knees

The cheapness and vulgarity of it was nauseating, and Martin noted apathetically that he was not nauseated

very much. He wished he could get angry, but did not have energy enough to try. He was too numb. His

blood was too congealed to accelerate to the swift tidal flow of indignation. After all, what did it matter? It

was on a par with all the rest that Brissenden had condemned in bourgeois society.

Rousing himself with an effort, he possessed himself of a box which had once contained typewriter paper.

Going through its contents, he drew forth eleven poems which his friend had written. These he tore

lengthwise and crosswise and dropped into the waste basket. He did it languidly, and, when he had finished,

How long he sat there he did not know, until, suddenly, across his sightless vision he saw form a long

horizontal line of white. It was curious. But as he watched it grow in definiteness he saw that it was a coral

reef smoking in the white Pacific surges. Next, in the line of breakers he made out a small canoe, an outrigger

canoe. In the stern he saw a young bronzed god in scarlet hipcloth dipping a flashing paddle. He recognized

him. He was Moti, the youngest son of Tati, the chief, and this was Tahiti, and beyond that smoking reef lay

the sweet land of Papara and the chief's grass house by the river's mouth. It was the end of the day, and Moti

was coming home from the fishing. He was waiting for the rush of a big breaker whereon to jump the reef.

Then he saw himself, sitting forward in the canoe as he had often sat in the past, dipping a paddle that waited

Moti's word to dig in like mad when the turquoise wall of the great breaker rose behind them. Next, he was

no longer an onlooker but was himself in the canoe, Moti was crying out, they were both thrusting hard with

their paddles, racing on the steep face of the flying turquoise. Under the bow the water was hissing as from a

steam jet, the air was filled with driven spray, there was a rush and rumble and longechoing roar, and the

canoe floated on the placid water of the lagoon. Moti laughed and shook the salt water from his eyes, and

together they paddled in to the poundedcoral beach where Tati's grass walls through the cocoanutpalms

The picture faded, and before his eyes stretched the disorder of his squalid room. He strove in vain to see

Tahiti again. He knew there was singing among the trees and that the maidens were dancing in the moonlight,

but he could not see them. He could see only the littered writingtable, the empty space where the

typewriter had stood, and the unwashed windowpane. He closed his eyes with a groan, and slept.

He slept heavily all night, and did not stir until aroused by the postman on his morning round. Martin felt

tired and passive, and went through his letters aimlessly. One thin envelope, from a robber magazine,

contained for twentytwo dollars. He had been dunning for it for a year and a half. He noted its amount

apathetically. The oldtime thrill at receiving a publisher's check was gone. Unlike his earlier checks, this

one was not pregnant with promise of great things to come. To him it was a check for twentytwo dollars,

Another check was in the same mail, sent from a New York weekly in payment for some humorous verse

which had been accepted months before. It was for ten dollars. An idea came to him, which he calmly

considered. He did not know what he was going to do, and he felt in no hurry to do anything. In the meantime

he must live. Also he owed numerous debts. Would it not be a paying investment to put stamps on the huge

pile of manuscripts under the table and start them on their travels again? One or two of them might be

accepted. That would help him to live. He decided on the investment, and, after he had cashed the checks at

the bank down in Oakland, he bought ten dollars' worth of postage stamps. The thought of going home to

cook breakfast in his stuffy little room was repulsive to him. For the first time he refused to consider his

debts. He knew that in his room he could manufacture a substantial breakfast at a cost of from fifteen to

twenty cents. But, instead, he went into the Forum Cafe and ordered a breakfast that cost two dollars. He

tipped the waiter a quarter, and spent fifty cents for a package of Egyptian cigarettes. It was the first time he

had smoked since Ruth had asked him to stop. But he could see now no reason why he should not, and

besides, he wanted to smoke. And what did the money matter? For five cents he could have bought a package

of Durham and brown papers and rolled forty cigarettes but what of it? Money had no meaning to him now

except what it would immediately buy. He was chartless and rudderless, and he had no port to make, while

The days slipped along, and he slept eight hours regularly every night. Though now, while waiting for more

checks, he ate in the Japanese restaurants where meals were served for ten cents, his wasted body filled out,

as did the hollows in his cheeks. He no longer abused himself with short sleep, overwork, and overstudy. He

wrote nothing, and the books were closed. He walked much, out in the hills, and loafed long hours in the

quiet parks. He had no friends nor acquaintances, nor did he make any. He had no inclination. He was waiting

for some impulse, from he knew not where, to put his stopped life into motion again. In the meantime his life

Once he made a trip to San Francisco to look up the "real dirt." But at the last moment, as he stepped into the

upstairs entrance, he recoiled and turned and fled through the swarming ghetto. He was frightened at the

thought of hearing philosophy discussed, and he fled furtively, for fear that some one of the "real dirt" might

Sometimes he glanced over the magazines and newspapers to see how "Ephemera" was being maltreated. It

had made a hit. But what a hit! Everybody had read it, and everybody was discussing whether or not it was

really poetry. The local papers had taken it up, and daily there appeared columns of learned criticisms,

facetious editorials, and serious letters from subscribers. Helen Della Delmar (proclaimed with a flourish of

trumpets and rolling of tomtoms to be the greatest woman poet in the United States) denied Brissenden a seat

beside her on Pegasus and wrote voluminous letters to the public, proving that he was no poet.

THE PARTHENON came out in its next number patting itself on the back for the stir it had made, sneering at

Sir John Value, and exploiting Brissenden's death with ruthless commercialism. A newspaper with a sworn

circulation of half a million published an original and spontaneous poem by Helen Della Delmar, in which

she gibed and sneered at Brissenden. Also, she was guilty of a second poem, in which she parodied him.

Martin had many times to be glad that Brissenden was dead. He had hated the crowd so, and here all that was

finest and most sacred of him had been thrown to the crowd. Daily the vivisection of Beauty went on. Every

nincompoop in the land rushed into free print, floating their wizened little egos into the public eye on the

surge of Brissenden's greatness. Quoth one paper: "We have received a letter from a gentleman who wrote a

poem just like it, only better, some time ago." Another paper, in deadly seriousness, reproving Helen Della

Delmar for her parody, said: "But unquestionably Miss Delmar wrote it in a moment of badinage and not

quite with the respect that one great poet should show to another and perhaps to the greatest. However,

whether Miss Delmar be jealous or not of the man who invented 'Ephemera,' it is certain that she, like

thousands of others, is fascinated by his work, and that the day may come when she will try to write lines like

Ministers began to preach sermons against "Ephemera," and one, who too stoutly stood for much of its

content, was expelled for heresy. The great poem contributed to the gayety of the world. The comic

versewriters and the cartoonists took hold of it with screaming laughter, and in the personal columns of

society weeklies jokes were perpetrated on it to the effect that Charley Frensham told Archie Jennings, in

confidence, that five lines of "Ephemera" would drive a man to beat a cripple, and that ten lines would send

Martin did not laugh; nor did he grit his teeth in anger. The effect produced upon him was one of great

sadness. In the crash of his whole world, with love on the pinnacle, the crash of magazinedom and the dear

public was a small crash indeed. Brissenden had been wholly right in his judgment of the magazines, and he,

Martin, had spent arduous and futile years in order to find it out for himself. The magazines were all

Brissenden had said they were and more. Well, he was done, he solaced himself. He had hitched his wagon to

a star and been landed in a pestiferous marsh. The visions of Tahiti clean, sweet Tahiti were coming to

him more frequently. And there were the low Paumotus, and the high Marquesas; he saw himself often, now,

on board trading schooners or frail little cutters, slipping out at dawn through the reef at Papeete and

beginning the long beat through the pearlatolls to Nukahiva and the Bay of Taiohae, where Tamari, he

knew, would kill a pig in honor of his coming, and where Tamari's flowergarlanded daughters would seize

his hands and with song and laughter garland him with flowers. The South Seas were calling, and he knew

In the meantime he drifted, resting and recuperating after the long traverse he had made through the realm of

knowledge. When THE PARTHENON check of three hundred and fifty dollars was forwarded to him, he

turned it over to the local lawyer who had attended to Brissenden's affairs for his family. Martin took a

receipt for the check, and at the same time gave a note for the hundred dollars Brissenden had let him have.

The time was not long when Martin ceased patronizing the Japanese restaurants. At the very moment when

he had abandoned the fight, the tide turned. But it had turned too late. Without a thrill he opened a thick

envelope from THE MILLENNIUM, scanned the face of a check that represented three hundred dollars, and

noted that it was the payment on acceptance for "Adventure." Every debt he owed in the world, including the

pawnshop, with its usurious interest, amounted to less than a hundred dollars. And when he had paid

everything, and lifted the hundreddollar note with Brissenden's lawyer, he still had over a hundred dollars in

pocket. He ordered a suit of clothes from the tailor and ate his meals in the best cafes in town. He still slept in

his little room at Maria's, but the sight of his new clothes caused the neighborhood children to cease from

calling him "hobo" and "tramp" from the roofs of woodsheds and over back fences.

"WikiWiki," his Hawaiian short story, was bought by WARREN'S MONTHLY for two hundred and fifty

dollars. THE NORTHERN REVIEW took his essay, "The Cradle of Beauty," and MACKINTOSH'S

MAGAZINE took "The Palmist" the poem he had written to Marian. The editors and readers were back

from their summer vacations, and manuscripts were being handled quickly. But Martin could not puzzle out

what strange whim animated them to this general acceptance of the things they had persistently rejected for

two years. Nothing of his had been published. He was not known anywhere outside of Oakland, and in

Oakland, with the few who thought they knew him, he was notorious as a redshirt and a socialist. So there

was no explaining this sudden acceptability of his wares. It was sheer jugglery of fate.

After it had been refused by a number of magazines, he had taken Brissenden's rejected advice and started,

"The Shame of the Sun" on the round of publishers. After several refusals, Singletree, Darnley Co. accepted

it, promising fall publication. When Martin asked for an advance on royalties, they wrote that such was not

their custom, that books of that nature rarely paid for themselves, and that they doubted if his book would sell

a thousand copies. Martin figured what the book would earn him on such a sale. Retailed at a dollar, on a

royalty of fifteen per cent, it would bring him one hundred and fifty dollars. He decided that if he had it to do

over again he would confine himself to fiction. "Adventure," onefourth as long, had brought him twice as

much from THE MILLENNIUM. That newspaper paragraph he had read so long ago had been true, after all.

The firstclass magazines did not pay on acceptance, and they paid well. Not two cents a word, but four cents

a word, had THE MILLENNIUM paid him. And, furthermore, they bought good stuff, too, for were they not

He wrote to Singletree, Darnley Co., offering to sell out his rights in "The Shame of the Sun" for a hundred

dollars, but they did not care to take the risk. In the meantime he was not in need of money, for several of his

later stories had been accepted and paid for. He actually opened a bank account, where, without a debt in the

world, he had several hundred dollars to his credit. "Overdue," after having been declined by a number of

magazines, came to rest at the MeredithLowell Company. Martin remembered the five dollars Gertrude had

given him, and his resolve to return it to her a hundred times over; so he wrote for an advance on royalties of

five hundred dollars. To his surprise a check for that amount, accompanied by a contract, came by return

mail. He cashed the check into fivedollar gold pieces and telephoned Gertrude that he wanted to see her.

She arrived at the house panting and short of breath from the haste she had made. Apprehensive of trouble,

she had stuffed the few dollars she possessed into her handsatchel; and so sure was she that disaster had

overtaken her brother, that she stumbled forward, sobbing, into his arms, at the same time thrusting the

"I'd have come myself," he said. "But I didn't want a row with Mr. Higginbotham, and that is what would

"He'll be all right after a time," she assured him, while she wondered what the trouble was that Martin was in.

"But you'd best get a job first an' steady down. Bernard does like to see a man at honest work. That stuff in

"I'm not going to get a job," Martin said with a smile. "And you can tell him so from me. I don't need a job,

"You remember that fiver you gave me the time I didn't have carfare? Well, there it is, with ninetynine

If Gertrude had been frightened when she arrived, she was now in a panic of fear. Her fear was such that it

was certitude. She was not suspicious. She was convinced. She looked at Martin in horror, and her heavy

He was puzzled for a moment. Then he divined the cause of her agitation and handed her the

MeredithLowell letter which had accompanied the check. She stumbled through it, pausing now and again

Slowly faith came back to her, and she reread the letter carefully. It took him long to explain to her the nature

of the transaction which had put the money into his possession, and longer still to get her to understand that

"You'll do nothing of the sort. It's yours, to do with as you please, and if you won't take it, I'll give it to Maria.

She'll know what to do with it. I'd suggest, though, that you hire a servant and take a good long rest."

"Yes, he will I'm sure he will!" she exclaimed fervently, as she drew him to her and kissed and hugged him.

One day Martin became aware that he was lonely. He was healthy and strong, and had nothing to do. The

cessation from writing and studying, the death of Brissenden, and the estrangement from Ruth had made a big

hole in his life; and his life refused to be pinned down to good living in cafes and the smoking of Egyptian

cigarettes. It was true the South Seas were calling to him, but he had a feeling that the game was not yet

played out in the United States. Two books were soon to be published, and he had more books that might find

publication. Money could be made out of them, and he would wait and take a sackful of it into the South

Seas. He knew a valley and a bay in the Marquesas that he could buy for a thousand Chili dollars. The valley

ran from the horseshoe, land locked bay to the tops of the dizzy, cloudcapped peaks and contained perhaps

ten thousand acres. It was filled with tropical fruits, wild chickens, and wild pigs, with an occasional herd of

wild cattle, while high up among the peaks were herds of wild goats harried by packs of wild dogs. The

whole place was wild. Not a human lived in it. And he could buy it and the bay for a thousand Chili dollars.

The bay, as he remembered it, was magnificent, with water deep enough to accommodate the largest vessel

afloat, and so safe that the South Pacific Directory recommended it to the best careening place for ships for

hundreds of miles around. He would buy a schooner one of those yachtlike, coppered crafts that sailed

like witches and go trading copra and pearling among the islands. He would make the valley and the bay

his headquarters. He would build a patriarchal grass house like Tati's, and have it and the valley and the

schooner filled with darkskinned servitors. He would entertain there the factor of Taiohae, captains of

wandering traders, and all the best of the South Pacific riffraff. He would keep open house and entertain like

a prince. And he would forget the books he had opened and the world that had proved an illusion.

To do all this he must wait in California to fill the sack with money. Already it was beginning to flow in. If

one of the books made a strike, it might enable him to sell the whole heap of manuscripts. Also he could

collect the stories and the poems into books, and make sure of the valley and the bay and the schooner. He

would never write again. Upon that he was resolved. But in the meantime, awaiting the publication of the

books, he must do something more than live dazed and stupid in the sort of uncaring trance into which he had

He noted, one Sunday morning, that the Bricklayers' Picnic took place that day at Shell Mound Park, and to

Shell Mound Park he went. He had been to the workingclass picnics too often in his earlier life not to know

what they were like, and as he entered the park he experienced a recrudescence of all the old sensations. After

all, they were his kind, these working people. He had been born among them, he had lived among them, and

"If it ain't Mart!" he heard some one say, and the next moment a hearty hand was on his shoulder. "Where

It was the old crowd in which he found himself the old crowd, with here and there a gap, and here and there

a new face. The fellows were not bricklayers, but, as in the old days, they attended all Sunday picnics for the

dancing, and the fighting, and the fun. Martin drank with them, and began to feel really human once more. He

was a fool to have ever left them, he thought; and he was very certain that his sum of happiness would have

been greater had he remained with them and let alone the books and the people who sat in the high places.

Yet the beer seemed not so good as of yore. It didn't taste as it used to taste. Brissenden had spoiled him for

steam beer, he concluded, and wondered if, after all, the books had spoiled him for companionship with these

friends of his youth. He resolved that he would not be so spoiled, and he went on to the dancing pavilion.

Jimmy, the plumber, he met there, in the company of a tall, blond girl who promptly forsook him for Martin.

"Gee, it's like old times," Jimmy explained to the gang that gave him the laugh as Martin and the blonde

whirled away in a waltz. "An' I don't give a rap. I'm too damned glad to see 'm back. Watch 'm waltz, eh? It's

But Martin restored the blonde to Jimmy, and the three of them, with half a dozen friends, watched the

revolving couples and laughed and joked with one another. Everybody was glad to see Martin back. No book

of his been published; he carried no fictitious value in their eyes. They liked him for himself. He felt like a

prince returned from excile, and his lonely heart burgeoned in the geniality in which it bathed. He made a

mad day of it, and was at his best. Also, he had money in his pockets, and, as in the old days when he

Once, on the dancingfloor, he saw Lizzie Connolly go by in the arms of a young workingman; and, later,

when he made the round of the pavilion, he came upon her sitting by a refreshment table. Surprise and

greetings over, he led her away into the grounds, where they could talk without shouting down the music.

From the instant he spoke to her, she was his. He knew it. She showed it in the proud humility of her eyes, in

every caressing movement of her proudly carried body, and in the way she hung upon his speech. She was

not the young girl as he had known her. She was a woman, now, and Martin noted that her wild, defiant

beauty had improved, losing none of its wildness, while the defiance and the fire seemed more in control. "A

beauty, a perfect beauty," he murmured admiringly under his breath. And he knew she was his, that all he had

to do was to say "Come," and she would go with him over the world wherever he led.

Even as the thought flashed through his brain he received a heavy blow on the side of his head that nearly

knocked him down. It was a man's fist, directed by a man so angry and in such haste that the fist had missed

the jaw for which it was aimed. Martin turned as he staggered, and saw the fist coming at him in a wild

swing. Quite as a matter of course he ducked, and the fist flew harmlessly past, pivoting the man who had

driven it. Martin hooked with his left, landing on the pivoting man with the weight of his body behind the

blow. The man went to the ground sidewise, leaped to his feet, and made a mad rush. Martin saw his

passiondistorted face and wondered what could be the cause of the fellow's anger. But while he wondered,

he shot in a straight left, the weight of his body behind the blow. The man went over backward and fell in a

Martin was thrilling all over. This was the old days with a vengeance, with their dancing, and their fighting,

and their fun. While he kept a wary eye on his antagonist, he glanced at Lizzie. Usually the girls screamed

when the fellows got to scrapping, but she had not screamed. She was looking on with bated breath, leaning

slightly forward, so keen was her interest, one hand pressed to her breast, her cheek flushed, and in her eyes a

The man had gained his feet and was struggling to escape the restraining arms that were laid on him.

"She was waitin' for me to come back!" he was proclaiming to all and sundry. "She was waitin' for me to

come back, an' then that fresh guy comes buttin' in. Let go o' me, I tell yeh. I'm goin' to fix 'm."

"What's eatin' yer?" Jimmy was demanding, as he helped hold the young fellow back. "That guy's Mart Eden.

He's nifty with his mits, lemme tell you that, an' he'll eat you alive if you monkey with 'm."

"He licked the Flyin' Dutchman, an' you know HIM," Jimmy went on expostulating. "An' he did it in five

This information seemed to have a mollifying effect, and the irate young man favored Martin with a

"That's what the Flyin' Dutchman thought," Jimmy assured him. "Come on, now, let's get outa this. There's

The young fellow allowed himself to be led away toward the pavilion, and the gang followed after him.

Already the zest of combat, which of old had been so keen and lasting, had died down, and he discovered that

he was self analytical, too much so to live, single heart and single hand, so primitive an existence.

"I had to, you see," she explained after a pause. "I was gettin' pretty lonesome. But I never forgot." Her voice

sank lower, and she looked straight before her. "I'd throw 'm down for you any time."

Martin looking at her averted face, knowing that all he had to do was to reach out his hand and pluck her, fell

to pondering whether, after all, there was any real worth in refined, grammatical English, and, so, forgot to

"He's a husky young fellow, though," he admitted generously. "If they hadn't taken him away, he might have

"It was a long time ago," she murmured contemplatively. "It seems like a thousand years."

But Martin went no further into the matter. He led the conversation off into other channels. They had lunch in

the restaurant, where he ordered wine and expensive delicacies and afterward he danced with her and with no

one but her, till she was tired. He was a good dancer, and she whirled around and around with him in a

heaven of delight, her head against his shoulder, wishing that it could last forever. Later in the afternoon they

strayed off among the trees, where, in the good old fashion, she sat down while he sprawled on his back, his

head in her lap. He lay and dozed, while she fondled his hair, looked down on his closed eyes, and loved him

without reserve. Looking up suddenly, he read the tender advertisement in her face. Her eyes fluttered down,

"I've kept straight all these years," she said, her voice so low that it was almost a whisper.

In his heart Martin knew that it was the miraculous truth. And at his heart pleaded a great temptation. It was

in his power to make her happy. Denied happiness himself, why should he deny happiness to her? He could

marry her and take her down with him to dwell in the grasswalled castle in the Marquesas. The desire to do

it was strong, but stronger still was the imperative command of his nature not to do it. In spite of himself he

was still faithful to Love. The old days of license and easy living were gone. He could not bring them back,

nor could he go back to them. He was changed how changed he had not realized until now.

The hand caressing his hair paused perceptibly, then went on with the same gentle stroke. He noticed her face

harden, but it was with the hardness of resolution, for still the soft color was in her cheeks and she was all

"I don't care," she repeated. "I'm proud to be your friend. I'd do anything for you. I'm made that way, I guess."

Martin sat up. He took her hand in his. He did it deliberately, with warmth but without passion; and such

"You are a great and noble woman," he said. "And it is I who should be proud to know you. And I am, I am.

You are a ray of light to me in a very dark world, and I've got to be straight with you, just as straight as you

"I don't care whether you're straight with me or not. You could do anything with me. You could throw me in

the dirt an' walk on me. An' you're the only man in the world that can," she added with a defiant flash. "I ain't

"And it's just because of that that I'm not going to," he said gently. "You are so big and generous that you

challenge me to equal generousness. I'm not marrying, and I'm not well, loving without marrying, though

I've done my share of that in the past. I'm sorry I came here today and met you. But it can't be helped now,

"But look here, Lizzie. I can't begin to tell you how much I like you. I do more than like you. I admire and

respect you. You are magnificent, and you are magnificently good. But what's the use of words? Yet there's

something I'd like to do. You've had a hard life; let me make it easy for you." (A joyous light welled into her

eyes, then faded out again.) "I'm pretty sure of getting hold of some money soon lots of it."

In that moment he abandoned the idea of the valley and the bay, the grasswalled castle and the trim, white

schooner. After all, what did it matter? He could go away, as he had done so often, before the mast, on any

"I'd like to turn it over to you. There must be something you want to go to school or business college. You

might like to study and be a stenographer. I could fix it for you. Or maybe your father and mother are living

I could set them up in a grocery store or something. Anything you want, just name it, and I can fix it for you."

She made no reply, but sat, gazing straight before her, dryeyed and motionless, but with an ache in the

throat which Martin divined so strongly that it made his own throat ache. He regretted that he had spoken. It

seemed so tawdry what he had offered her mere money compared with what she offered him. He offered

her an extraneous thing with which he could part without a pang, while she offered him herself, along with

"Don't let's talk about it," she said with a catch in her voice that she changed to a cough. She stood up. "Come

The day was done, and the merrymakers had nearly all departed. But as Martin and Lizzie emerged from the

trees they found the gang waiting for them. Martin knew immediately the meaning of it. Trouble was

brewing. The gang was his bodyguard. They passed out through the gates of the park with, straggling in the

rear, a second gang, the friends that Lizzie's young man had collected to avenge the loss of his lady. Several

constables and special police officers, anticipating trouble, trailed along to prevent it, and herded the two

gangs separately aboard the train for San Francisco. Martin told Jimmy that he would get off at Sixteenth

Street Station and catch the electric car into Oakland. Lizzie was very quiet and without interest in what was

impending. The train pulled in to Sixteenth Street Station, and the waiting electric car could be seen, the

"There she is," Jimmy counselled. "Make a run for it, an' we'll hold 'em back. Now you go! Hit her up!"

The hostile gang was temporarily disconcerted by the manoeuvre, then it dashed from the train in pursuit. The

staid and sober Oakland folk who sat upon the car scarcely noted the young fellow and the girl who ran for it

and found a seat in front on the outside. They did not connect the couple with Jimmy, who sprang on the

The next moment Jimmy whirled about, and the passengers saw him land his fist on the face of a running

man who was trying to board the car. But fists were landing on faces the whole length of the car. Thus,

Jimmy and his gang, strung out on the long, lower steps, met the attacking gang. The car started with a great

clanging of its gong, and, as Jimmy's gang drove off the last assailants, they, too, jumped off to finish the job.

The car dashed on, leaving the flurry of combat far behind, and its dumfounded passengers never dreamed

that the quiet young man and the pretty workinggirl sitting in the corner on the outside seat had been the

Martin had enjoyed the fight, with a recrudescence of the old fighting thrills. But they quickly died away, and

he was oppressed by a great sadness. He felt very old centuries older than those careless, carefree young

companions of his others days. He had travelled far, too far to go back. Their mode of life, which had once

been his, was now distasteful to him. He was disappointed in it all. He had developed into an alien. As the

steam beer had tasted raw, so their companionship seemed raw to him. He was too far removed. Too many

thousands of opened books yawned between them and him. He had exiled himself. He had travelled in the

vast realm of intellect until he could no longer return home. On the other hand, he was human, and his

gregarious need for companionship remained unsatisfied. He had found no new home. As the gang could not

understand him, as his own family could not understand him, as the bourgeoisie could not understand him, so

this girl beside him, whom he honored high, could not understand him nor the honor he paid her. His sadness

"Make it up with him," he advised Lizzie, at parting, as they stood in front of the workingman's shack in

which she lived, near Sixth and Market. He referred to the young fellow whose place he had usurped that day.

"Oh, go on," he said jovially. "All you have to do is whistle and he'll come running."

She leaned toward him as he was about to say good night. But she leaned not imperatively, not seductively,

but wistfully and humbly. He was touched to the heart. His large tolerance rose up in him. He put his arms

around her, and kissed her, and knew that upon his own lips rested as true a kiss as man ever received.

She tore herself from him suddenly and ran up the steps. He felt a quick moisture in his eyes.

"Martin Eden," he communed. "You're not a brute, and you're a damn poor Nietzscheman. You'd marry her if

you could and fill her quivering heart full with happiness. But you can't, you can't. And it's a damn shame."

"'A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers,'" he muttered, remembering his Henly. "'Life is, I think, a

"The Shame of the Sun" was published in October. As Martin cut the cords of the express package and the

halfdozen complimentary copies from the publishers spilled out on the table, a heavy sadness fell upon him.

He thought of the wild delight that would have been his had this happened a few short months before, and he

contrasted that delight that should have been with his present uncaring coldness. His book, his first book, and

his pulse had not gone up a fraction of a beat, and he was only sad. It meant little to him now. The most it

meant was that it might bring some money, and little enough did he care for money.

"I did it," he explained, in order to clear up her bewilderment. "I wrote it in the room there, and I guess some

few quarts of your vegetable soup went into the making of it. Keep it. It's yours. Just to remember me by, you

He was not bragging, not showing off. His sole motive was to make her happy, to make her proud of him, to

justify her long faith in him. She put the book in the front room on top of the family Bible. A sacred thing

was this book her lodger had made, a fetich of friendship. It softened the blow of his having been a

laundryman, and though she could not understand a line of it, she knew that every line of it was great. She

was a simple, practical, hardworking woman, but she possessed faith in large endowment.

Just as emotionlessly as he had received "The Shame of the Sun" did he read the reviews of it that came in

weekly from the clipping bureau. The book was making a hit, that was evident. It meant more gold in the

money sack. He could fix up Lizzie, redeem all his promises, and still have enough left to build his

Singletree, Darnley Co. had cautiously brought out an edition of fifteen hundred copies, but the first reviews

had started a second edition of twice the size through the presses; and ere this was delivered a third edition of

five thousand had been ordered. A London firm made arrangements by cable for an English edition, and

hotfooted upon this came the news of French, German, and Scandinavian translations in progress. The

attack upon the Maeterlinck school could not have been made at a more opportune moment. A fierce

controversy was precipitated. Saleeby and Haeckel indorsed and defended "The Shame of the Sun," for once

finding themselves on the same side of a question. Crookes and Wallace ranged up on the opposing side,

while Sir Oliver Lodge attempted to formulate a compromise that would jibe with his particular cosmic

theories. Maeterlinck's followers rallied around the standard of mysticism. Chesterton set the whole world

laughing with a series of alleged nonpartisan essays on the subject, and the whole affair, controversy and

controversialists, was wellnigh swept into the pit by a thundering broadside from George Bernard Shaw.

Needless to say the arena was crowded with hosts of lesser lights, and the dust and sweat and din became

"It is a most marvellous happening," Singletree, Darnley Co. wrote Martin, "a critical philosophic essay

selling like a novel. You could not have chosen your subject better, and all contributory factors have been

unwarrantedly propitious. We need scarcely to assure you that we are making hay while the sun shines. Over

forty thousand copies have already been sold in the United States and Canada, and a new edition of twenty

thousand is on the presses. We are overworked, trying to supply the demand. Nevertheless we have helped to

create that demand. We have already spent five thousand dollars in advertising. The book is bound to be a

"Please find herewith a contract in duplicate for your next book which we have taken the liberty of

forwarding to you. You will please note that we have increased your royalties to twenty per cent, which is

about as high as a conservative publishing house dares go. If our offer is agreeable to you, please fill in the

proper blank space with the title of your book. We make no stipulations concerning its nature. Any book on

any subject. If you have one already written, so much the better. Now is the time to strike. The iron could not

"On receipt of signed contract we shall be pleased to make you an advance on royalties of five thousand

dollars. You see, we have faith in you, and we are going in on this thing big. We should like, also, to discuss

with you the drawing up of a contract for a term of years, say ten, during which we shall have the exclusive

Martin laid down the letter and worked a problem in mental arithmetic, finding the product of fifteen cents

times sixty thousand to be nine thousand dollars. He signed the new contract, inserting "The Smoke of Joy"

in the blank space, and mailed it back to the publishers along with the twenty storiettes he had written in the

days before he discovered the formula for the newspaper storiette. And promptly as the United States mail

could deliver and return, came Singletree, Darnley Co.'s check for five thousand dollars.

"I want you to come down town with me, Maria, this afternoon about two o'clock," Martin said, the morning

the check arrived. "Or, better, meet me at Fourteenth and Broadway at two o'clock. I'll be looking out for

At the appointed time she was there; but SHOES was the only clew to the mystery her mind had been capable

of evolving, and she suffered a distinct shock of disappointment when Martin walked her right by a

shoestore and dived into a real estate office. What happened thereupon resided forever after in her memory

as a dream. Fine gentlemen smiled at her benevolently as they talked with Martin and one another; a

typewriter clicked; signatures were affixed to an imposing document; her own landlord was there, too, and

affixed his signature; and when all was over and she was outside on the sidewalk, her landlord spoke to her,

saying, "Well, Maria, you won't have to pay me no seven dollars and a half this month."

She thanked him incoherently, as if for a favor. And it was not until she had returned home to North Oakland

and conferred with her own kind, and had the Portuguese grocer investigate, that she really knew that she was

the owner of the little house in which she had lived and for which she had paid rent so long.

"Why don't you trade with me no more?" the Portuguese grocer asked Martin that evening, stepping out to

hail him when he got off the car; and Martin explained that he wasn't doing his own cooking any more, and

then went in and had a drink of wine on the house. He noted it was the best wine the grocer had in stock.

"Maria," Martin announced that night, "I'm going to leave you. And you're going to leave here yourself soon.

Then you can rent the house and be a landlord yourself. You've a brother in San Leandro or Haywards, and

he's in the milk business. I want you to send all your washing back unwashed understand? unwashed, and

to go out to San Leandro tomorrow, or Haywards, or wherever it is, and see that brother of yours. Tell him

to come to see me. I'll be stopping at the Metropole down in Oakland. He'll know a good milk ranch when

And so it was that Maria became a landlord and the sole owner of a dairy, with two hired men to do the work

for her and a bank account that steadily increased despite the fact that her whole brood wore shoes and went

to school. Few persons ever meet the fairy princes they dream about; but Maria, who worked hard and whose

head was hard, never dreaming about fairy princes, entertained hers in the guise of an exlaundryman.

In the meantime the world had begun to ask: "Who is this Martin Eden?" He had declined to give any

biographical data to his publishers, but the newspapers were not to be denied. Oakland was his own town, and

the reporters nosed out scores of individuals who could supply information. All that he was and was not, all

that he had done and most of what he had not done, was spread out for the delectation of the public,

accompanied by snapshots and photographs the latter procured from the local photographer who had once

taken Martin's picture and who promptly copyrighted it and put it on the market. At first, so great was his

disgust with the magazines and all bourgeois society, Martin fought against publicity; but in the end, because

it was easier than not to, he surrendered. He found that he could not refuse himself to the special writers who

travelled long distances to see him. Then again, each day was so many hours long, and, since he no longer

was occupied with writing and studying, those hours had to be occupied somehow; so he yielded to what was

to him a whim, permitted interviews, gave his opinions on literature and philosophy, and even accepted

invitations of the bourgeoisie. He had settled down into a strange and comfortable state of mind. He no longer

cared. He forgave everybody, even the cub reporter who had painted him red and to whom he now granted a

He saw Lizzie occasionally, and it was patent that she regretted the greatness that had come to him. It

widened the space between them. Perhaps it was with the hope of narrowing it that she yielded to his

persuasions to go to night school and business college and to have herself gowned by a wonderful dressmaker

who charged outrageous prices. She improved visibly from day to day, until Martin wondered if he was doing

right, for he knew that all her compliance and endeavor was for his sake. She was trying to make herself of

worth in his eyes of the sort of worth he seemed to value. Yet he gave her no hope, treating her in brotherly

"Overdue" was rushed upon the market by the MeredithLowell Company in the height of his popularity, and

being fiction, in point of sales it made even a bigger strike than "The Shame of the Sun." Week after week his

was the credit of the unprecedented performance of having two books at the head of the list of bestsellers.

Not only did the story take with the fictionreaders, but those who read "The Shame of the Sun" with avidity

were likewise attracted to the seastory by the cosmic grasp of mastery with which he had handled it. First he

had attacked the literature of mysticism, and had done it exceeding well; and, next, he had successfully

supplied the very literature he had exposited, thus proving himself to be that rare genius, a critic and a creator

Money poured in on him, fame poured in on him; he flashed, comet like, through the world of literature, and

he was more amused than interested by the stir he was making. One thing was puzzling him, a little thing that

would have puzzled the world had it known. But the world would have puzzled over his bepuzzlement rather

than over the little thing that to him loomed gigantic. Judge Blount invited him to dinner. That was the little

thing, or the beginning of the little thing, that was soon to become the big thing. He had insulted Judge

Blount, treated him abominably, and Judge Blount, meeting him on the street, invited him to dinner. Martin

bethought himself of the numerous occasions on which he had met Judge Blount at the Morses' and when

Judge Blount had not invited him to dinner. Why had he not invited him to dinner then? he asked himself. He

had not changed. He was the same Martin Eden. What made the difference? The fact that the stuff he had

written had appeared inside the covers of books? But it was work performed. It was not something he had

done since. It was achievement accomplished at the very time Judge Blount was sharing this general view

and sneering at his Spencer and his intellect. Therefore it was not for any real value, but for a purely fictitious

Martin grinned and accepted the invitation, marvelling the while at his complacence. And at the dinner,

where, with their womankind, were half a dozen of those that sat in high places, and where Martin found

himself quite the lion, Judge Blount, warmly seconded by Judge Hanwell, urged privately that Martin should

permit his name to be put up for the Styx the ultraselect club to which belonged, not the mere men of

wealth, but the men of attainment. And Martin declined, and was more puzzled than ever.

He was kept busy disposing of his heap of manuscripts. He was overwhelmed by requests from editors. It had

been discovered that he was a stylist, with meat under his style. THE NORTHERN REVIEW, after

publishing "The Cradle of Beauty," had written him for half a dozen similar essays, which would have been

supplied out of the heap, had not BURTON'S MAGAZINE, in a speculative mood, offered him five hundred

dollars each for five essays. He wrote back that he would supply the demand, but at a thousand dollars an

essay. He remembered that all these manuscripts had been refused by the very magazines that were now

clamoring for them. And their refusals had been coldblooded, automatic, stereotyped. They had made him

sweat, and now he intended to make them sweat. BURTON'S MAGAZINE paid his price for five essays, and

the remaining four, at the same rate, were snapped up by MACKINTOSH'S MONTHLY, THE NORTHERN

REVIEW being too poor to stand the pace. Thus went out to the world "The High Priests of Mystery," "The

WonderDreamers," "The Yardstick of the Ego," "Philosophy of Illusion," "God and Clod," "Art and

Biology," "Critics and Testtubes," "Stardust," and "The Dignity of Usury," to raise storms and rumblings

Editors wrote to him telling him to name his own terms, which he did, but it was always for work performed.

He refused resolutely to pledge himself to any new thing. The thought of again setting pen to paper maddened

him. He had seen Brissenden torn to pieces by the crowd, and despite the fact that him the crowd acclaimed,

he could not get over the shock nor gather any respect for the crowd. His very popularity seemed a disgrace

and a treason to Brissenden. It made him wince, but he made up his mind to go on and fill the moneybag.

He received letters from editors like the following: "About a year ago we were unfortunate enough to refuse

your collection of love poems. We were greatly impressed by them at the time, but certain arrangements

already entered into prevented our taking them. If you still have them, and if you will be kind enough to

forward them, we shall be glad to publish the entire collection on your own terms. We are also prepared to

Martin recollected his blankverse tragedy, and sent it instead. He read it over before mailing, and was

particularly impressed by its sophomoric amateurishness and general worthlessness. But he sent it; and it was

published, to the everlasting regret of the editor. The public was indignant and incredulous. It was too far a

cry from Martin Eden's high standard to that serious bosh. It was asserted that he had never written it, that the

magazine had faked it very clumsily, or that Martin Eden was emulating the elder Dumas and at the height of

success was hiring his writing done for him. But when he explained that the tragedy was an early effort of his

literary childhood, and that the magazine had refused to be happy unless it got it, a great laugh went up at the

magazine's expense and a change in the editorship followed. The tragedy was never brought out in

COLEMAN'S WEEKLY sent Martin a lengthy telegram, costing nearly three hundred dollars, offering him a

thousand dollars an article for twenty articles. He was to travel over the United States, with all expenses paid,

and select whatever topics interested him. The body of the telegram was devoted to hypothetical topics in

order to show him the freedom of range that was to be his. The only restriction placed upon him was that he

must confine himself to the United States. Martin sent his inability to accept and his regrets by wire "collect."

"WikiWiki," published in WARREN'S MONTHLY, was an instantaneous success. It was brought out

forward in a widemargined, beautifully decorated volume that struck the holiday trade and sold like

wildfire. The critics were unanimous in the belief that it would take its place with those two classics by two

The public, however, received the "Smoke of Joy" collection rather dubiously and coldly. The audacity and

unconventionality of the storiettes was a shock to bourgeois morality and prejudice; but when Paris went mad

over the immediate translation that was made, the American and English reading public followed suit and

bought so many copies that Martin compelled the conservative house of Singletree, Darnley Co. to pay a flat

royalty of twentyfive per cent for a third book, and thirty per cent flat for a fourth. These two volumes

comprised all the short stories he had written and which had received, or were receiving, serial publication.

"The Ring of Bells" and his horror stories constituted one collection; the other collection was composed of

"Adventure," "The Pot," "The Wine of Life," "The Whirlpool," "The Jostling Street," and four other stories.

The LowellMeredith Company captured the collection of all his essays, and the Maxmillian Company got

his "Sea Lyrics" and the "Lovecycle," the latter receiving serial publication in the LADIES' HOME

Martin heaved a sigh of relief when he had disposed of the last manuscript. The grasswalled castle and the

white, coppered schooner were very near to him. Well, at any rate he had discovered Brissenden's contention

that nothing of merit found its way into the magazines. His own success demonstrated that Brissenden had

And yet, somehow, he had a feeling that Brissenden had been right, after all. "The Shame of the Sun" had

been the cause of his success more than the stuff he had written. That stuff had been merely incidental. It had

been rejected right and left by the magazines. The publication of "The Shame of the Sun" had started a

controversy and precipitated the landslide in his favor. Had there been no "Shame of the Sun" there would

have been no landslide, and had there been no miracle in the go of "The Shame of the Sun" there would have

been no landslide. Singletree, Darnley Co. attested that miracle. They had brought out a first edition of fifteen

hundred copies and been dubious of selling it. They were experienced publishers and no one had been more

astounded than they at the success which had followed. To them it had been in truth a miracle. They never

got over it, and every letter they wrote him reflected their reverent awe of that first mysterious happening.

They did not attempt to explain it. There was no explaining it. It had happened. In the face of all experience

So it was, reasoning thus, that Martin questioned the validity of his popularity. It was the bourgeoisie that

bought his books and poured its gold into his moneysack, and from what little he knew of the bourgeoisie it

was not clear to him how it could possibly appreciate or comprehend what he had written. His intrinsic

beauty and power meant nothing to the hundreds of thousands who were acclaiming him and buying his

books. He was the fad of the hour, the adventurer who had stormed Parnassus while the gods nodded. The

hundreds of thousands read him and acclaimed him with the same brute nonunderstanding with which they

had flung themselves on Brissenden's "Ephemera" and torn it to pieces a wolfrabble that fawned on him

instead of fanging him. Fawn or fang, it was all a matter of chance. One thing he knew with absolute

certitude: "Ephemera" was infinitely greater than anything he had done. It was infinitely greater than

anything he had in him. It was a poem of centuries. Then the tribute the mob paid him was a sorry tribute

indeed, for that same mob had wallowed "Ephemera" into the mire. He sighed heavily and with satisfaction.

He was glad the last manuscript was sold and that he would soon be done with it all.

Mr. Morse met Martin in the office of the Hotel Metropole. Whether he had happened there just casually,

intent on other affairs, or whether he had come there for the direct purpose of inviting him to dinner, Martin

never could quite make up his mind, though he inclined toward the second hypothesis. At any rate, invited to

dinner he was by Mr. Morse Ruth's father, who had forbidden him the house and broken off the

Martin was not angry. He was not even on his dignity. He tolerated Mr. Morse, wondering the while how it

felt to eat such humble pie. He did not decline the invitation. Instead, he put it off with vagueness and

indefiniteness and inquired after the family, particularly after Mrs. Morse and Ruth. He spoke her name

without hesitancy, naturally, though secretly surprised that he had had no inward quiver, no old, familiar

He had many invitations to dinner, some of which he accepted. Persons got themselves introduced to him in

order to invite him to dinner. And he went on puzzling over the little thing that was becoming a great thing.

Bernard Higginbotham invited him to dinner. He puzzled the harder. He remembered the days of his

desperate starvation when no one invited him to dinner. That was the time he needed dinners, and went weak

and faint for lack of them and lost weight from sheer famine. That was the paradox of it. When he wanted

dinners, no one gave them to him, and now that he could buy a hundred thousand dinners and was losing his

appetite, dinners were thrust upon him right and left. But why? There was no justice in it, no merit on his

part. He was no different. All the work he had done was even at that time work performed. Mr. and Mrs.

Morse had condemned him for an idler and a shirk and through Ruth had urged that he take a clerk's position

in an office. Furthermore, they had been aware of his work performed. Manuscript after manuscript of his had

been turned over to them by Ruth. They had read them. It was the very same work that had put his name in all

the papers, and, it was his name being in all the papers that led them to invite him.

One thing was certain: the Morses had not cared to have him for himself or for his work. Therefore they

could not want him now for himself or for his work, but for the fame that was his, because he was somebody

amongst men, and why not? because he had a hundred thousand dollars or so. That was the way

bourgeois society valued a man, and who was he to expect it otherwise? But he was proud. He disdained such

valuation. He desired to be valued for himself, or for his work, which, after all, was an expression of himself.

That was the way Lizzie valued him. The work, with her, did not even count. She valued him, himself. That

was the way Jimmy, the plumber, and all the old gang valued him. That had been proved often enough in the

days when he ran with them; it had been proved that Sunday at Shell Mound Park. His work could go hang.

What they liked, and were willing to scrap for, was just Mart Eden, one of the bunch and a pretty good guy.

Then there was Ruth. She had liked him for himself, that was indisputable. And yet, much as she had liked

him she had liked the bourgeois standard of valuation more. She had opposed his writing, and principally, it

seemed to him, because it did not earn money. That had been her criticism of his "Lovecycle." She, too, had

urged him to get a job. It was true, she refined it to "position," but it meant the same thing, and in his own

mind the old nomenclature stuck. He had read her all that he wrote poems, stories, essays "WikiWiki,"

"The Shame of the Sun," everything. And she had always and consistently urged him to get a job, to go to

work good God! as if he hadn't been working, robbing sleep, exhausting life, in order to be worthy of her.

So the little thing grew bigger. He was healthy and normal, ate regularly, slept long hours, and yet the

growing little thing was becoming an obsession. WORK PERFORMED. The phrase haunted his brain. He sat

opposite Bernard Higginbotham at a heavy Sunday dinner over Higginbotham's Cash Store, and it was all he

"It was work performed! And now you feed me, when then you let me starve, forbade me your house, and

damned me because I wouldn't get a job. And the work was already done, all done. And now, when I speak,

you check the thought unuttered on your lips and hang on my lips and pay respectful attention to whatever I

choose to say. I tell you your party is rotten and filled with grafters, and instead of flying into a rage you hum

and haw and admit there is a great deal in what I say. And why? Because I'm famous; because I've a lot of

money. Not because I'm Martin Eden, a pretty good fellow and not particularly a fool. I could tell you the

moon is made of green cheese and you would subscribe to the notion, at least you would not repudiate it,

because I've got dollars, mountains of them. And it was all done long ago; it was work performed, I tell you,

But Martin did not shout out. The thought gnawed in his brain, an unceasing torment, while he smiled and

succeeded in being tolerant. As he grew silent, Bernard Higginbotham got the reins and did the talking. He

was a success himself, and proud of it. He was self made. No one had helped him. He owed no man. He was

fulfilling his duty as a citizen and bringing up a large family. And there was Higginbotham's Cash Store, that

monument of his own industry and ability. He loved Higginbotham's Cash Store as some men loved their

wives. He opened up his heart to Martin, showed with what keenness and with what enormous planning he

had made the store. And he had plans for it, ambitious plans. The neighborhood was growing up fast. The

store was really too small. If he had more room, he would be able to put in a score of laborsaving and

money saving improvements. And he would do it yet. He was straining every effort for the day when he

could buy the adjoining lot and put up another twostory frame building. The upstairs he could rent, and the

whole groundfloor of both buildings would be Higginbotham's Cash Store. His eyes glistened when he

Martin forgot to listen. The refrain of "Work performed," in his own brain, was drowning the other's clatter.

His brotherinlaw paused in the middle of an expatiation on the business opportunities of the neighborhood.

He hadn't said how much it would cost. But he knew. He had figured it out a score of times.

He leaned forward, licking his lips, nervously spreading and closing his fingers, while he watched Martin

write a check. When it was passed over to him, he glanced at the amountseven thousand dollars.

"Then, if you've no objection, well arrange it this way." Martin glanced at Gertrude. "You can have the

principal to keep for yourself, if you'll use the thirtyfive dollars a month for cooking and washing and

scrubbing. The seven thousand is yours if you'll guarantee that Gertrude does no more drudgery. Is it a go?"

Mr. Higginbotham swallowed hard. That his wife should do no more housework was an affront to his thrifty

soul. The magnificent present was the coating of a pill, a bitter pill. That his wife should not work! It gagged

He reached across the table for the check. But Bernard Higginbotham got his hand on it first, crying:

When Martin got on the electric car, he was very sick and tired. He looked up at the assertive sign.

When MACKINTOSH'S MAGAZINE published "The Palmist," featuring it with decorations by Berthier and

with two pictures by Wenn, Hermann von Schmidt forgot that he had called the verses obscene. He

announced that his wife had inspired the poem, saw to it that the news reached the ears of a reporter, and

submitted to an interview by a staff writer who was accompanied by a staff photographer and a staff artist.

The result was a full page in a Sunday supplement, filled with photographs and idealized drawings of Marian,

with many intimate details of Martin Eden and his family, and with the full text of "The Palmist" in large

type, and republished by special permission of MACKINTOSH'S MAGAZINE. It caused quite a stir in the

neighborhood, and good housewives were proud to have the acquaintances of the great writer's sister, while

those who had not made haste to cultivate it. Hermann von Schmidt chuckled in his little repair shop and

decided to order a new lathe. "Better than advertising," he told Marian, "and it costs nothing."

And to dinner Martin came, making himself agreeable with the fat wholesale butcher and his fatter wife

important folk, they, likely to be of use to a rising young man like Hermann Yon Schmidt. No less a bait,

however, had been required to draw them to his house than his great brotherinlaw. Another man at table

who had swallowed the same bait was the superintendent of the Pacific Coast agencies for the Asa Bicycle

Company. Him Von Schmidt desired to please and propitiate because from him could be obtained the

Oakland agency for the bicycle. So Hermann von Schmidt found it a goodly asset to have Martin for a

brotherinlaw, but in his heart of hearts he couldn't understand where it all came in. In the silent watches of

the night, while his wife slept, he had floundered through Martin's books and poems, and decided that the

And in his heart of hearts Martin understood the situation only too well, as he leaned back and gloated at Von

Schmidt's head, in fancy punching it wellnigh off of him, sending blow after blow home just right the

chuckleheaded Dutchman! One thing he did like about him, however. Poor as he was, and determined to

rise as he was, he nevertheless hired one servant to take the heavy work off of Marian's hands. Martin talked

with the superintendent of the Asa agencies, and after dinner he drew him aside with Hermann, whom he

backed financially for the best bicycle store with fittings in Oakland. He went further, and in a private talk

with Hermann told him to keep his eyes open for an automobile agency and garage, for there was no reason

With tears in her eyes and her arms around his neck, Marian, at parting, told Martin how much she loved him

and always had loved him. It was true, there was a perceptible halt midway in her assertion, which she

glossed over with more tears and kisses and incoherent stammerings, and which Martin inferred to be her

appeal for forgiveness for the time she had lacked faith in him and insisted on his getting a job.

"He can't never keep his money, that's sure," Hermann von Schmidt confided to his wife. "He got mad when I

spoke of interest, an' he said damn the principal and if I mentioned it again, he'd punch my Dutch head off.

That's what he said my Dutch head. But he's all right, even if he ain't no business man. He's given me my

Invitations to dinner poured in on Martin; and the more they poured, the more he puzzled. He sat, the guest of

honor, at an Arden Club banquet, with men of note whom he had heard about and read about all his life; and

they told him how, when they had read "The Ring of Bells" in the TRANSCONTINENTAL, and "The Peri

and the Pearl" in THE HORNET, they had immediately picked him for a winner. My God! and I was hungry

and in rags, he thought to himself. Why didn't you give me a dinner then? Then was the time. It was work

performed. If you are feeding me now for work performed, why did you not feed me then when I needed it?

Not one word in "The Ring of Bells," nor in "The Peri and the Pearl" has been changed. No; you're not

feeding me now for work performed. You are feeding me because everybody else is feeding me and because

it is an honor to feed me. You are feeding me now because you are herd animals; because you are part of the

mob; because the one blind, automatic thought in the mobmind just now is to feed me. And where does

Martin Eden and the work Martin Eden performed come in in all this? he asked himself plaintively, then

So it went. Wherever he happened to be at the Press Club, at the Redwood Club, at pink teas and literary

gatherings always were remembered "The Ring of Bells" and "The Peri and the Pearl" when they were first

published. And always was Martin's maddening and unuttered demand: Why didn't you feed me then? It was

work performed. "The Ring of Bells" and "The Peri and the Pearl" are not changed one iota. They were just

as artistic, just as worth while, then as now. But you are not feeding me for their sake, nor for the sake of

anything else I have written. You're feeding me because it is the style of feeding just now, because the whole

And often, at such times, he would abruptly see slouch in among the company a young hoodlum in

squarecut coat and under a stiffrim Stetson hat. It happened to him at the Gallina Society in Oakland one

afternoon. As he rose from his chair and stepped forward across the platform, he saw stalk through the wide

door at the rear of the great room the young hoodlum with the squarecut coat and stiffrim hat. Five

hundred fashionably gowned women turned their heads, so intent and steadfast was Martin's gaze, to see what

he was seeing. But they saw only the empty centre aisle. He saw the young tough lurching down that aisle

and wondered if he would remove the stiffrim which never yet had he seen him without. Straight down the

aisle he came, and up the platform. Martin could have wept over that youthful shade of himself, when he

thought of all that lay before him. Across the platform he swaggered, right up to Martin, and into the

foreground of Martin's consciousness disappeared. The five hundred women applauded softly with gloved

hands, seeking to encourage the bashful great man who was their guest. And Martin shook the vision from his

The Superintendent of Schools, good old man, stopped Martin on the street and remembered him, recalling

"I read your 'Ring of Bells' in one of the magazines quite a time ago," he said. "It was as good as Poe.

Yes, and twice in the months that followed you passed me on the street and did not know me, Martin almost

said aloud. Each time I was hungry and heading for the pawnbroker. Yet it was work performed. You did not

"I was remarking to my wife only the other day," the other was saying, "wouldn't it be a good idea to have

you out to dinner some time? And she quite agreed with me. Yes, she quite agreed with me."

"Why, yes, yes, dinner, you know just pot luck with us, with your old superintendent, you rascal," he

Martin went down the street in a daze. He stopped at the corner and looked about him vacantly.

Kreis came to Martin one day Kreis, of the "real dirt"; and Martin turned to him with relief, to receive the

glowing details of a scheme sufficiently wildcatty to interest him as a fictionist rather than an investor. Kreis

paused long enough in the midst of his exposition to tell him that in most of his "Shame of the Sun" he had

"But I didn't come here to spout philosophy," Kreis went on. "What I want to know is whether or not you will

"No, I'm not chump enough for that, at any rate," Martin answered. "But I'll tell you what I will do. You gave

me the greatest night of my life. You gave me what money cannot buy. Now I've got money, and it means

nothing to me. I'd like to turn over to you a thousand dollars of what I don't value for what you gave me that

night and which was beyond price. You need the money. I've got more than I need. You want it. You came

"At that rate I'd like the contract of providing you with many such nights," he said.

"Too late." Martin shook his head. "That night was the one night for me. I was in paradise. It's commonplace

with you, I know. But it wasn't to me. I shall never live at such a pitch again. I'm done with philosophy. I

"The first dollar I ever made in my life out of my philosophy," Kreis remarked, as he paused in the doorway.

Mrs. Morse drove by Martin on the street one day, and smiled and nodded. He smiled back and lifted his hat.

The episode did not affect him. A month before it might have disgusted him, or made him curious and set

him to speculating about her state of consciousness at that moment. But now it was not provocative of a

second thought. He forgot about it the next moment. He forgot about it as he would have forgotten the

Central Bank Building or the City Hall after having walked past them. Yet his mind was preternaturally

active. His thoughts went ever around and around in a circle. The centre of that circle was "work performed";

it ate at his brain like a deathless maggot. He awoke to it in the morning. It tormented his dreams at night.

Every affair of life around him that penetrated through his senses immediately related itself to "work

performed." He drove along the path of relentless logic to the conclusion that he was nobody, nothing. Mart

Eden, the hoodlum, and Mart Eden, the sailor, had been real, had been he; but Martin Eden! the famous

writer, did not exist. Martin Eden, the famous writer, was a vapor that had arisen in the mobmind and by the

mobmind had been thrust into the corporeal being of Mart Eden, the hoodlum and sailor. But it couldn't fool

him. He was not that sunmyth that the mob was worshipping and sacrificing dinners to. He knew better.

He read the magazines about himself, and pored over portraits of himself published therein until he was

unable to associate his identity with those portraits. He was the fellow who had lived and thrilled and loved;

who had been easygoing and tolerant of the frailties of life; who had served in the forecastle, wandered in

strange lands, and led his gang in the old fighting days. He was the fellow who had been stunned at first by

the thousands of books in the free library, and who had afterward learned his way among them and mastered

them; he was the fellow who had burned the midnight oil and bedded with a spur and written books himself.

But the one thing he was not was that colossal appetite that all the mob was bent upon feeding.

There were things, however, in the magazines that amused him. All the magazines were claiming him.

WARREN'S MONTHLY advertised to its subscribers that it was always on the quest after new writers, and

that, among others, it had introduced Martin Eden to the reading public. THE WHITE MOUSE claimed him;

so did THE NORTHERN REVIEW and MACKINTOSH'S MAGAZINE, until silenced by THE GLOBE,

which pointed triumphantly to its files where the mangled "Sea Lyrics" lay buried. YOUTH AND AGE,

which had come to life again after having escaped paying its bills, put in a prior claim, which nobody but

farmers' children ever read. The TRANSCONTINENTAL made a dignified and convincing statement of how

it first discovered Martin Eden, which was warmly disputed by THE HORNET, with the exhibit of "The Peri

and the Pearl." The modest claim of Singletree, Darnley Co. was lost in the din. Besides, that publishing firm

The newspapers calculated Martin's royalties. In some way the magnificent offers certain magazines had

made him leaked out, and Oakland ministers called upon him in a friendly way, while professional begging

letters began to clutter his mail. But worse than all this were the women. His photographs were published

broadcast, and special writers exploited his strong, bronzed face, his scars, his heavy shoulders, his clear,

quiet eyes, and the slight hollows in his cheeks like an ascetic's. At this last he remembered his wild youth

and smiled. Often, among the women he met, he would see now one, now another, looking at him, appraising

him, selecting him. He laughed to himself. He remembered Brissenden's warning and laughed again. The

women would never destroy him, that much was certain. He had gone past that stage.

Once, walking with Lizzie toward night school, she caught a glance directed toward him by a wellgowned,

handsome woman of the bourgeoisie. The glance was a trifle too long, a shade too considerative. Lizzie knew

it for what it was, and her body tensed angrily. Martin noticed, noticed the cause of it, told her how used he

"You ought to care," she answered with blazing eyes. "You're sick. That's what's the matter."

"It ain't your body. It's your head. Something's wrong with your thinkmachine. Even I can see that, an' I ain't

"I'd give anything to see you get over it," she broke out impulsively. "You ought to care when women look at

you that way, a man like you. It's not natural. It's all right enough for sissy boys. But you ain't made that

way. So help me, I'd be willing an' glad if the right woman came along an' made you care."

Once in his rooms, he dropped into a Morris chair and sat staring straight before him. He did not doze. Nor

did he think. His mind was a blank, save for the intervals when unsummoned memory pictures took form and

color and radiance just under his eyelids. He saw these pictures, but he was scarcely conscious of them no

more so than if they had been dreams. Yet he was not asleep. Once, he roused himself and glanced at his

watch. It was just eight o'clock. He had nothing to do, and it was too early for bed. Then his mind went blank

again, and the pictures began to form and vanish under his eyelids. There was nothing distinctive about the

pictures. They were always masses of leaves and shrublike branches shot through with hot sunshine.

A knock at the door aroused him. He was not asleep, and his mind immediately connected the knock with a

telegram, or letter, or perhaps one of the servants bringing back clean clothes from the laundry. He was

He was still thinking about Joe, and did not turn toward the door. He heard it close softly. There was a long

silence. He forgot that there had been a knock at the door, and was still staring blankly before him when he

heard a woman's sob. It was involuntary, spasmodic, checked, and stifled he noted that as he turned about.

Her face was white and strained. She stood just inside the door, one hand against it for support, the other

pressed to her side. She extended both hands toward him piteously, and started forward to meet him. As he

caught her hands and led her to the Morris chair he noticed how cold they were. He drew up another chair

and sat down on the broad arm of it. He was too confused to speak. In his own mind his affair with Ruth was

closed and sealed. He felt much in the same way that he would have felt had the Shelly Hot Springs Laundry

suddenly invaded the Hotel Metropole with a whole week's washing ready for him to pitch into. Several times

He had never been so tonguetied in his life. Positively he did not have an idea in his head. He felt stupid and

awkward, but for the life of him he could think of nothing to say. It would have been easier had the intrusion

been the Shelly Hot Springs laundry. He could have rolled up his sleeves and gone to work.

She nodded, with a slightly arch expression, and loosened the scarf at her throat.

"I slipped in. Nobody knows I am here. I wanted to see you. I came to tell you I have been very foolish. I

came because I could no longer stay away, because my heart compelled me to come, because because I

She came forward, out of her chair and over to him. She rested her hand on his shoulder a moment, breathing

quickly, and then slipped into his arms. And in his large, easy way, desirous of not inflicting hurt, knowing

that to repulse this proffer of herself was to inflict the most grievous hurt a woman could receive, he folded

his arms around her and held her close. But there was no warmth in the embrace, no caress in the contact. She

had come into his arms, and he held her, that was all. She nestled against him, and then, with a change of

position, her hands crept up and rested upon his neck. But his flesh was not fire beneath those hands, and he

"What makes you tremble so?" he asked. "Is it a chill? Shall I light the grate?"

He made a movement to disengage himself, but she clung more closely to him, shivering violently.

"It is merely nervousness," she said with chattering teeth. "I'll control myself in a minute. There, I am better

Slowly her shivering died away. He continued to hold her, but he was no longer puzzled. He knew now for

"Charley Hapgood, that fellow who speaks always in platitudes?" Martin groaned. Then he added, "And now,

He did not put it in the form of a question. He stated it as a certitude, and before his eyes began to dance the

"And yet I am not a bit more eligible now than I was when she broke our engagement," he meditated. "I

haven't changed any. I'm the same Martin Eden, though for that matter I'm a bit worse I smoke now. Don't

In reply she pressed her open fingers against his lips, placed them graciously and playfully, and in expectancy

of the kiss that of old had always been a consequence. But there was no caressing answer of Martin's lips. He

"I am not changed. I haven't got a job. I'm not looking for a job. Furthermore, I am not going to look for a

job. And I still believe that Herbert Spencer is a great and noble man and that Judge Blount is an unmitigated

"No one knows that I am here," she protested. "Do you think my mother would permit this?"

She gave a sharp cry. "Oh, Martin, don't be cruel. You have not kissed me once. You are as unresponsive as a

stone. And think what I have dared to do." She looked about her with a shiver, though half the look was

"I COULD DIE FOR YOU! I COULD DIE FOR YOU!" Lizzie's words were ringing in his ears.

"Why didn't you dare it before?" he asked harshly. "When I hadn't a job? When I was starving? When I was

just as I am now, as a man, as an artist, the same Martin Eden? That's the question I've been propounding to

myself for many a day not concerning you merely, but concerning everybody. You see I have not changed,

though my sudden apparent appreciation in value compels me constantly to reassure myself on that point. I've

got the same flesh on my bones, the same ten fingers and toes. I am the same. I have not developed any new

strength nor virtue. My brain is the same old brain. I haven't made even one new generalization on literature

or philosophy. I am personally of the same value that I was when nobody wanted me. And what is puzzling

me is why they want me now. Surely they don't want me for myself, for myself is the same old self they did

not want. Then they must want me for something else, for something that is outside of me, for something that

is not I! Shall I tell you what that something is? It is for the recognition I have received. That recognition is

not I. It resides in the minds of others. Then again for the money I have earned and am earning. But that

money is not I. It resides in banks and in the pockets of Tom, Dick, and Harry. And is it for that, for the

"You are breaking my heart," she sobbed. "You know I love you, that I am here because I love you."

"I am afraid you don't see my point," he said gently. "What I mean is: if you love me, how does it happen that

you love me now so much more than you did when your love was weak enough to deny me?"

"Forget and forgive," she cried passionately. "I loved you all the time, remember that, and I am here, now, in

"I'm afraid I am a shrewd merchant, peering into the scales, trying to weigh your love and find out what

She withdrew herself from his arms, sat upright, and looked at him long and searchingly. She was about to

"You see, it appears this way to me," he went on. "When I was all that I am now, nobody out of my own class

seemed to care for me. When my books were all written, no one who had read the manuscripts seemed to care

for them. In point of fact, because of the stuff I had written they seemed to care even less for me. In writing

the stuff it seemed that I had committed acts that were, to say the least, derogatory. 'Get a job,' everybody

"Yes, yes," he said; "except in your case you told me to get a position. The homely word JOB, like much that

I have written, offends you. It is brutal. But I assure you it was no less brutal to me when everybody I knew

recommended it to me as they would recommend right conduct to an immoral creature. But to return. The

publication of what I had written, and the public notice I received, wrought a change in the fibre of your love.

Martin Eden, with his work all performed, you would not marry. Your love for him was not strong enough to

enable you to marry him. But your love is now strong enough, and I cannot avoid the conclusion that its

strength arises from the publication and the public notice. In your case I do not mention royalties, though I

am certain that they apply to the change wrought in your mother and father. Of course, all this is not flattering

to me. But worst of all, it makes me question love, sacred love. Is love so gross a thing that it must feed upon

publication and public notice? It would seem so. I have sat and thought upon it till my head went around."

"Poor, dear head." She reached up a hand and passed the fingers soothingly through his hair. "Let it go

around no more. Let us begin anew, now. I loved you all the time. I know that I was weak in yielding to my

mother's will. I should not have done so. Yet I have heard you speak so often with broad charity of the

fallibility and frailty of humankind. Extend that charity to me. I acted mistakenly. Forgive me."

"Oh, I do forgive," he said impatiently. "It is easy to forgive where there is really nothing to forgive. Nothing

that you have done requires forgiveness. One acts according to one's lights, and more than that one cannot do.

"I meant well," she protested. "You know that I could not have loved you and not meant well."

"Yes, yes," he shut off her attempted objection. "You would have destroyed my writing and my career.

Realism is imperative to my nature, and the bourgeois spirit hates realism. The bourgeoisie is cowardly. It is

afraid of life. And all your effort was to make me afraid of life. You would have formalized me. You would

have compressed me into a twobyfour pigeonhole of life, where all life's values are unreal, and false, and

vulgar." He felt her stir protestingly. "Vulgarity a hearty vulgarity, I'll admit is the basis of bourgeois

refinement and culture. As I say, you wanted to formalize me, to make me over into one of your own class,

with your classideals, classvalues, and classprejudices." He shook his head sadly. "And you do not

understand, even now, what I am saying. My words do not mean to you what I endeavor to make them mean.

What I say is so much fantasy to you. Yet to me it is vital reality. At the best you are a trifle puzzled and

amused that this raw boy, crawling up out of the mire of the abyss, should pass judgment upon your class and

She leaned her head wearily against his shoulder, and her body shivered with recurrent nervousness. He

"And now you want to renew our love. You want us to be married. You want me. And yet, listen if my

books had not been noticed, I'd nevertheless have been just what I am now. And you would have stayed

"That's it," he said, "at a high moment, when what seems your life's happiness is at stake, you are afraid of

She was stung by his words into realization of the puerility of her act, and yet she felt that he had magnified it

unduly and was consequently resentful. They sat in silence for a long time, she thinking desperately and he

pondering upon his love which had departed. He knew, now, that he had not really loved her. It was an

idealized Ruth he had loved, an ethereal creature of his own creating, the bright and luminous spirit of his

lovepoems. The real bourgeois Ruth, with all the bourgeois failings and with the hopeless cramp of the

"I know that much you have said is so. I have been afraid of life. I did not love you well enough. I have

learned to love better. I love you for what you are, for what you were, for the ways even by which you have

become. I love you for the ways wherein you differ from what you call my class, for your beliefs which I do

not understand but which I know I can come to understand. I shall devote myself to understanding them. And

even your smoking and your swearing they are part of you and I will love you for them, too. I can still

learn. In the last ten minutes I have learned much. That I have dared to come here is a token of what I have

For the first time his arms folded her gently and with sympathy, and she acknowledged it with a happy

"It is too late," he said. He remembered Lizzie's words. "I am a sick man oh, not my body. It is my soul, my

brain. I seem to have lost all values. I care for nothing. If you had been this way a few months ago, it would

"It is not too late," she cried. "I will show you. I will prove to you that my love has grown, that it is greater to

me than my class and all that is dearest to me. All that is dearest to the bourgeoisie I will flout. I am no longer

afraid of life. I will leave my father and mother, and let my name become a byword with my friends. I will

come to you here and now, in free love if you will, and I will be proud and glad to be with you. If I have been

a traitor to love, I will now, for love's sake, be a traitor to all that made that earlier treason."

"I am waiting, Martin," she whispered, "waiting for you to accept me. Look at me."

It was splendid, he thought, looking at her. She had redeemed herself for all that she had lacked, rising up at

last, true woman, superior to the iron rule of bourgeois convention. It was splendid, magnificent, desperate.

And yet, what was the matter with him? He was not thrilled nor stirred by what she had done. It was splendid

and magnificent only intellectually. In what should have been a moment of fire, he coldly appraised her. His

heart was untouched. He was unaware of any desire for her. Again he remembered Lizzie's words.

"I am sick, very sick," he said with a despairing gesture. "How sick I did not know till now. Something has

gone out of me. I have always been unafraid of life, but I never dreamed of being sated with life. Life has so

filled me that I am empty of any desire for anything. If there were room, I should want you, now. You see

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes; and like a child, crying, that forgets its grief in watching the

sunlight percolate through the teardimmed films over the pupils, so Martin forgot his sickness, the presence

of Ruth, everything, in watching the masses of vegetation, shot through hotly with sunshine that took form

and blazed against this background of his eyelids. It was not restful, that green foliage. The sunlight was too

He was brought back to himself by the rattle of the doorknob. Ruth was at the door.

"Oh, forgive me," he cried, springing to his feet. "I'm not myself, you know. I forgot you were here." He put

his hand to his head. "You see, I'm not just right. I'll take you home. We can go out by the servants' entrance.

She clung to his arm through the dimlighted passages and down the narrow stairs.

"I am safe now," she said, when they emerged on the sidewalk, at the same time starting to take her hand

Again she started to remove her hand. He felt a momentary curiosity. Now that she was out of danger she was

afraid. She was in almost a panic to be quit of him. He could see no reason for it and attributed it to her

nervousness. So he restrained her withdrawing hand and started to walk on with her. Halfway down the

block, he saw a man in a long overcoat shrink back into a doorway. He shot a glance in as he passed by, and,

despite the high turned up collar, he was certain that he recognized Ruth's brother, Norman.

During the walk Ruth and Martin held little conversation. She was stunned. He was apathetic. Once, he

mentioned that he was going away, back to the South Seas, and, once, she asked him to forgive her having

come to him. And that was all. The parting at her door was conventional. They shook hands, said good night,

and he lifted his hat. The door swung shut, and he lighted a cigarette and turned back for his hotel. When he

came to the doorway into which he had seen Norman shrink, he stopped and looked in in a speculative

"She lied," he said aloud. "She made believe to me that she had dared greatly, and all the while she knew the

brother that brought her was waiting to take her back." He burst into laughter. "Oh, these bourgeois! When I

was broke, I was not fit to be seen with his sister. When I have a bank account, he brings her to me."

As he swung on his heel to go on, a tramp, going in the same direction, begged him over his shoulder.

But it was the voice that made Martin turn around. The next instant he had Joe by the hand.

"D'ye remember that time we parted at the Hot Springs?" the other was saying. "I said then we'd meet again. I

"I sure have." Joe's face was beaming. "I never knew what it was to live till I hit hoboin'. I'm thirty pounds

heavier an' feel tiptop all the time. Why, I was worked to skin an' bone in them old days. Hoboin' sure agrees

"But you're looking for a bed just the same," Martin chided, "and it's a cold night."

"Huh? Lookin' for a bed?" Joe shot a hand into his hip pocket and brought it out filled with small change.

"That beats hard graft," he exulted. "You just looked good; that's why I battered you."

"Not in mine," he announced. "No gettin' oryide for me, though there ain't nothin' to stop me except I don't

want to. I've ben drunk once since I seen you last, an' then it was unexpected, bein' on an empty stomach.

When I work like a beast, I drink like a beast. When I live like a man, I drink like a man a jolt now an'

Martin arranged to meet him next day, and went on to the hotel. He paused in the office to look up steamer

"Telephone over tomorrow and reserve a stateroom for me," he told the clerk. "No deckstateroom, but

down below, on the weather side, the portside, remember that, the portside. You'd better write it

Once in his room he got into bed and slipped off to sleep as gently as a child. The occurrences of the evening

had made no impression on him. His mind was dead to impressions. The glow of warmth with which he met

Joe had been most fleeting. The succeeding minute he had been bothered by the exlaundryman's presence

and by the compulsion of conversation. That in five more days he sailed for his loved South Seas meant

nothing to him. So he closed his eyes and slept normally and comfortably for eight uninterrupted hours. He

was not restless. He did not change his position, nor did he dream. Sleep had become to him oblivion, and

each day that he awoke, he awoke with regret. Life worried and bored him, and time was a vexation.

"Say, Joe," was his greeting to his oldtime workingmate next morning, "there's a Frenchman out on

Twentyeighth Street. He's made a pot of money, and he's going back to France. It's a dandy,

wellappointed, small steam laundry. There's a start for you if you want to settle down. Here, take this; buy

some clothes with it and be at this man's office by ten o'clock. He looked up the laundry for me, and he'll take

you out and show you around. If you like it, and think it is worth the price twelve thousand let me know

"Now look here, Mart," the other said slowly, with kindling anger, "I come here this mornin' to see you.

Savve? I didn't come here to get no laundry. I come a here for a talk for old friends' sake, and you shove a

laundry at me. I tell you, what you can do. You can take that laundry an' go to hell."

"Now look here, Joe," he said; "if you act that way, I'll punch your head. An for old friends' sake I'll punch it

Joe had clinched and attempted to throw him, and he was twisting and writhing out of the advantage of the

other's hold. They reeled about the room, locked in each other's arms, and came down with a crash across the

splintered wreckage of a wicker chair. Joe was underneath, with arms spread out and held and with Martin's

knee on his chest. He was panting and gasping for breath when Martin released him.

"Now we'll talk a moment," Martin said. "You can't get fresh with me. I want that laundry business finished

first of all. Then you can come back and we'll talk for old sake's sake. I told you I was busy. Look at that."

A servant had just come in with the morning mail, a great mass of letters and magazines.

"How can I wade through that and talk with you? You go and fix up that laundry, and then we'll get together."

"All right," Joe admitted reluctantly. "I thought you was turnin' me down, but I guess I was mistaken. But you

"Sure; as soon as I get that laundry going." Joe extended his arm. "You see that reach? It'll make you go a

Martin heaved a sigh of relief when the door closed behind the laundryman. He was becoming antisocial.

Daily he found it a severer strain to be decent with people. Their presence perturbed him, and the effort of

conversation irritated him. They made him restless, and no sooner was he in contact with them than he was

He did not proceed to attack his mail, and for a half hour he lolled in his chair, doing nothing, while no more

than vague, half formed thoughts occasionally filtered through his intelligence, or rather, at wide intervals,

He roused himself and began glancing through his mail. There were a dozen requests for autographs he

knew them at sight; there were professional begging letters; and there were letters from cranks, ranging from

the man with a working model of perpetual motion, and the man who demonstrated that the surface of the

earth was the inside of a hollow sphere, to the man seeking financial aid to purchase the Peninsula of Lower

California for the purpose of communist colonization. There were letters from women seeking to know him,

and over one such he smiled, for enclosed was her receipt for pewrent, sent as evidence of her good faith

Editors and publishers contributed to the daily heap of letters, the former on their knees for his manuscripts,

the latter on their knees for his books his poor disdained manuscripts that had kept all he possessed in pawn

for so many dreary months in order to find them in postage. There were unexpected checks for English serial

rights and for advance payments on foreign translations. His English agent announced the sale of German

translation rights in three of his books, and informed him that Swedish editions, from which he could expect

nothing because Sweden was not a party to the Berne Convention, were already on the market. Then there

was a nominal request for his permission for a Russian translation, that country being likewise outside the

He turned to the huge bundle of clippings which had come in from his press bureau, and read about himself

and his vogue, which had become a furore. All his creative output had been flung to the public in one

magnificent sweep. That seemed to account for it. He had taken the public off its feet, the way Kipling had,

that time when he lay near to death and all the mob, animated by a mob mind thought, began suddenly to

read him. Martin remembered how that same worldmob, having read him and acclaimed him and not

understood him in the least, had, abruptly, a few months later, flung itself upon him and torn him to pieces.

Martin grinned at the thought. Who was he that he should not be similarly treated in a few more months?

Well, he would fool the mob. He would be away, in the South Seas, building his grass house, trading for

pearls and copra, jumping reefs in frail outriggers, catching sharks and bonitas, hunting wild goats among the

In the moment of that thought the desperateness of his situation dawned upon him. He saw, cleared eyed, that

he was in the Valley of the Shadow. All the life that was in him was fading, fainting, making toward death.

He realized how much he slept, and how much he desired to sleep. Of old, he had hated sleep. It had robbed

him of precious moments of living. Four hours of sleep in the twentyfour had meant being robbed of four

hours of life. How he had grudged sleep! Now it was life he grudged. Life was not good; its taste in his

mouth was without tang, and bitter. This was his peril. Life that did not yearn toward life was in fair way

toward ceasing. Some remote instinct for preservation stirred in him, and he knew he must get away. He

glanced about the room, and the thought of packing was burdensome. Perhaps it would be better to leave that

He put on his hat and went out, stopping in at a gunstore, where he spent the remainder of the morning

buying automatic rifles, ammunition, and fishing tackle. Fashions changed in trading, and he knew he would

have to wait till he reached Tahiti before ordering his tradegoods. They could come up from Australia,

anyway. This solution was a source of pleasure. He had avoided doing something, and the doing of anything

just now was unpleasant. He went back to the hotel gladly, with a feeling of satisfaction in that the

comfortable Morris chair was waiting for him; and he groaned inwardly, on entering his room, at sight of Joe

Joe was delighted with the laundry. Everything was settled, and he would enter into possession next day.

Martin lay on the bed, with closed eyes, while the other talked on. Martin's thoughts were far away so far

away that he was rarely aware that he was thinking. It was only by an effort that he occasionally responded.

And yet this was Joe, whom he had always liked. But Joe was too keen with life. The boisterous impact of it

on Martin's jaded mind was a hurt. It was an aching probe to his tired sensitiveness. When Joe reminded him

that sometime in the future they were going to put on the gloves together, he could almost have screamed.

"Remember, Joe, you're to run the laundry according to those old rules you used to lay down at Shelly Hot

Springs," he said. "No overworking. No working at night. And no children at the mangles. No children

"Look at here. I was workin' out them rules before breakfast this A.M. What d'ye think of them?"

He read them aloud, and Martin approved, worrying at the same time as to when Joe would take himself off.

It was late afternoon when he awoke. Slowly the fact of life came back to him. He glanced about the room.

Joe had evidently stolen away after he had dozed off. That was considerate of Joe, he thought. Then he closed

In the days that followed Joe was too busy organizing and taking hold of the laundry to bother him much; and

it was not until the day before sailing that the newspapers made the announcement that he had taken passage

on the Mariposa. Once, when the instinct of preservation fluttered, he went to a doctor and underwent a

searching physical examination. Nothing could be found the matter with him. His heart and lungs were

pronounced magnificent. Every organ, so far as the doctor could know, was normal and was working

"There is nothing the matter with you, Mr. Eden," he said, "positively nothing the matter with you. You are in

the pink of condition. Candidly, I envy you your health. It is superb. Look at that chest. There, and in your

stomach, lies the secret of your remarkable constitution. Physically, you are a man in a thousand in ten

And Martin knew that Lizzie's diagnosis had been correct. Physically he was all right. It was his

"thinkmachine" that had gone wrong, and there was no cure for that except to get away to the South Seas.

The trouble was that now, on the verge of departure, he had no desire to go. The South Seas charmed him no

more than did bourgeois civilization. There was no zest in the thought of departure, while the act of departure

appalled him as a weariness of the flesh. He would have felt better if he were already on board and gone.

The last day was a sore trial. Having read of his sailing in the morning papers, Bernard Higginbotham,

Gertrude, and all the family came to say goodby, as did Hermann von Schmidt and Marian. Then there was

business to be transacted, bills to be paid, and everlasting reporters to be endured. He said goodby to Lizzie

Connolly, abruptly, at the entrance to night school, and hurried away. At the hotel he found Joe, too busy all

day with the laundry to have come to him earlier. It was the last straw, but Martin gripped the arms of his

"You know, Joe," he said, "that you are not tied down to that laundry. There are no strings on it. You can sell

it any time and blow the money. Any time you get sick of it and want to hit the road, just pull out. Do what

"No more road in mine, thank you kindly. Hoboin's all right, exceptin' for one thing the girls. I can't help it,

but I'm a ladies' man. I can't get along without 'em, and you've got to get along without 'em when you're

hoboin'. The times I've passed by houses where dances an' parties was goin' on, an' heard the women laugh,

an' saw their white dresses and smiling faces through the windows Gee! I tell you them moments was plain

hell. I like dancin' an' picnics, an' walking in the moonlight, an' all the rest too well. Me for the laundry, and a

good front, with big iron dollars clinkin' in my jeans. I seen a girl already, just yesterday, and, d'ye know, I'm

feelin' already I'd just as soon marry her as not. I've ben whistlin' all day at the thought of it. She's a beaut,

with the kindest eyes and softest voice you ever heard. Me for her, you can stack on that. Say, why don't you

get married with all this money to burn? You could get the finest girl in the land."

Martin shook his head with a smile, but in his secret heart he was wondering why any man wanted to marry.

From the deck of the Mariposa, at the sailing hour, he saw Lizzie Connolly hiding in the skirts of the crowd

on the wharf. Take her with you, came the thought. It is easy to be kind. She will be supremely happy. It was

almost a temptation one moment, and the succeeding moment it became a terror. He was in a panic at the

thought of it. His tired soul cried out in protest. He turned away from the rail with a groan, muttering, "Man,

He fled to his stateroom, where he lurked until the steamer was clear of the dock. In the dining saloon, at

luncheon, he found himself in the place of honor, at the captain's right; and he was not long in discovering

that he was the great man on board. But no more unsatisfactory great man ever sailed on a ship. He spent the

afternoon in a deckchair, with closed eyes, dozing brokenly most of the time, and in the evening went early

After the second day, recovered from seasickness, the full passenger list was in evidence, and the more he

saw of the passengers the more he disliked them. Yet he knew that he did them injustice. They were good and

kindly people, he forced himself to acknowledge, and in the moment of acknowledgment he qualified good

and kindly like all the bourgeoisie, with all the psychological cramp and intellectual futility of their kind, they

bored him when they talked with him, their little superficial minds were so filled with emptiness; while the

boisterous high spirits and the excessive energy of the younger people shocked him. They were never quiet,

ceaselessly playing deckquoits, tossing rings, promenading, or rushing to the rail with loud cries to watch

He slept much. After breakfast he sought his deckchair with a magazine he never finished. The printed

pages tired him. He puzzled that men found so much to write about, and, puzzling, dozed in his chair. When

the gong awoke him for luncheon, he was irritated that he must awaken. There was no satisfaction in being

Once, he tried to arouse himself from his lethargy, and went forward into the forecastle with the sailors. But

the breed of sailors seemed to have changed since the days he had lived in the forecastle. He could find no

kinship with these stolidfaced, ox minded bestial creatures. He was in despair. Up above nobody had

wanted Martin Eden for his own sake, and he could not go back to those of his own class who had wanted

him in the past. He did not want them. He could not stand them any more than he could stand the stupid

Life was to him like strong, white light that hurts the tired eyes of a sick person. During every conscious

moment life blazed in a raw glare around him and upon him. It hurt. It hurt intolerably. It was the first time in

his life that Martin had travelled first class. On ships at sea he had always been in the forecastle, the steerage,

or in the black depths of the coalhold, passing coal. In those days, climbing up the iron ladders out the pit of

stifling heat, he had often caught glimpses of the passengers, in cool white, doing nothing but enjoy

themselves, under awnings spread to keep the sun and wind away from them, with subservient stewards

taking care of their every want and whim, and it had seemed to him that the realm in which they moved and

had their being was nothing else than paradise. Well, here he was, the great man on board, in the midmost

centre of it, sitting at the captain's right hand, and yet vainly harking back to forecastle and stokehole in

quest of the Paradise he had lost. He had found no new one, and now he could not find the old one.

He strove to stir himself and find something to interest him. He ventured the petty officers' mess, and was

glad to get away. He talked with a quartermaster off duty, an intelligent man who promptly prodded him with

the socialist propaganda and forced into his hands a bunch of leaflets and pamphlets. He listened to the man

expounding the slavemorality, and as he listened, he thought languidly of his own Nietzsche philosophy.

But what was it worth, after all? He remembered one of Nietzsche's mad utterances wherein that madman had

doubted truth. And who was to say? Perhaps Nietzsche had been right. Perhaps there was no truth in

anything, no truth in truth no such thing as truth. But his mind wearied quickly, and he was content to go

Miserable as he was on the steamer, a new misery came upon him. What when the steamer reached Tahiti?

He would have to go ashore. He would have to order his tradegoods, to find a passage on a schooner to the

Marquesas, to do a thousand and one things that were awful to contemplate. Whenever he steeled himself

deliberately to think, he could see the desperate peril in which he stood. In all truth, he was in the Valley of

the Shadow, and his danger lay in that he was not afraid. If he were only afraid, he would make toward life.

Being unafraid, he was drifting deeper into the shadow. He found no delight in the old familiar things of life.

The Mariposa was now in the northeast trades, and this wine of wind, surging against him, irritated him. He

had his chair moved to escape the embrace of this lusty comrade of old days and nights.

The day the Mariposa entered the doldrums, Martin was more miserable than ever. He could no longer sleep.

He was soaked with sleep, and perforce he must now stay awake and endure the white glare of life. He

moved about restlessly. The air was sticky and humid, and the rainsqualls were unrefreshing. He ached with

life. He walked around the deck until that hurt too much, then sat in his chair until he was compelled to walk

again. He forced himself at last to finish the magazine, and from the steamer library he culled several

volumes of poetry. But they could not hold him, and once more he took to walking.

He stayed late on deck, after dinner, but that did not help him, for when he went below, he could not sleep.

This surcease from life had failed him. It was too much. He turned on the electric light and tried to read. One

of the volumes was a Swinburne. He lay in bed, glancing through its pages, until suddenly he became aware

that he was reading with interest. He finished the stanza, attempted to read on, then came back to it. He rested

the book face downward on his breast and fell to thinking. That was it. The very thing. Strange that it had

never come to him before. That was the meaning of it all; he had been drifting that way all the time, and now

Swinburne showed him that it was the happy way out. He wanted rest, and here was rest awaiting him. He

glanced at the open porthole. Yes, it was large enough. For the first time in weeks he felt happy. At last he

had discovered the cure of his ill. He picked up the book and read the stanza slowly aloud:

"'From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever

gods may be That no life lives forever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds

He looked again at the open port. Swinburne had furnished the key. Life was ill, or, rather, it had become ill

an unbearable thing. "That dead men rise up never!" That line stirred him with a profound feeling of

gratitude. It was the one beneficent thing in the universe. When life became an aching weariness, death was

ready to soothe away to everlasting sleep. But what was he waiting for? It was time to go.

He arose and thrust his head out the porthole, looking down into the milky wash. The Mariposa was deeply

loaded, and, hanging by his hands, his feet would be in the water. He could slip in noiselessly. No one would

hear. A smother of spray dashed up, wetting his face. It tasted salt on his lips, and the taste was good. He

wondered if he ought to write a swansong, but laughed the thought away. There was no time. He was too

Turning off the light in his room so that it might not betray him, he went out the porthole feet first. His

shoulders stuck, and he forced himself back so as to try it with one arm down by his side. A roll of the

steamer aided him, and he was through, hanging by his hands. When his feet touched the sea, he let go. He

was in a milky froth of water. The side of the Mariposa rushed past him like a dark wall, broken here and

there by lighted ports. She was certainly making time. Almost before he knew it, he was astern, swimming

A bonita struck at his white body, and he laughed aloud. It had taken a piece out, and the sting of it reminded

him of why he was there. In the work to do he had forgotten the purpose of it. The lights of the Mariposa

were growing dim in the distance, and there he was, swimming confidently, as though it were his intention to

It was the automatic instinct to live. He ceased swimming, but the moment he felt the water rising above his

mouth the hands struck out sharply with a lifting movement. The will to live, was his thought, and the

thought was accompanied by a sneer. Well, he had will, ay, will strong enough that with one last exertion it

He changed his position to a vertical one. He glanced up at the quiet stars, at the same time emptying his

lungs of air. With swift, vigorous propulsion of hands and feet, he lifted his shoulders and half his chest out

of water. This was to gain impetus for the descent. Then he let himself go and sank without movement, a

white statue, into the sea. He breathed in the water deeply, deliberately, after the manner of a man taking an

anaesthetic. When he strangled, quite involuntarily his arms and legs clawed the water and drove him up to

The will to live, he thought disdainfully, vainly endeavoring not to breathe the air into his bursting lungs.

Well, he would have to try a new way. He filled his lungs with air, filled them full. This supply would take

him far down. He turned over and went down head first, swimming with all his strength and all his will.

Deeper and deeper he went. His eyes were open, and he watched the ghostly, phosphorescent trails of the

darting bonita. As he swam, he hoped that they would not strike at him, for it might snap the tension of his

will. But they did not strike, and he found time to be grateful for this last kindness of life.

Down, down, he swam till his arms and leg grew tired and hardly moved. He knew that he was deep. The

pressure on his eardrums was a pain, and there was a buzzing in his head. His endurance was faltering, but

he compelled his arms and legs to drive him deeper until his will snapped and the air drove from his lungs in

a great explosive rush. The bubbles rubbed and bounded like tiny balloons against his cheeks and eyes as they

took their upward flight. Then came pain and strangulation. This hurt was not death, was the thought that

oscillated through his reeling consciousness. Death did not hurt. It was life, the pangs of life, this awful,

His wilful hands and feet began to beat and churn about, spasmodically and feebly. But he had fooled them

and the will to live that made them beat and churn. He was too deep down. They could never bring him to the

surface. He seemed floating languidly in a sea of dreamy vision. Colors and radiances surrounded him and

bathed him and pervaded him. What was that? It seemed a lighthouse; but it was inside his brain a flashing,

bright white light. It flashed swifter and swifter. There was a long rumble of sound, and it seemed to him that

he was falling down a vast and interminable stairway. And somewhere at the bottom he fell into darkness.

That much he knew. He had fallen into darkness. And at the instant he knew, he ceased to know.