The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-08-13
An InlperialiStiC PhantaSllagorla
By WALTER F. JACKSON.

mountains half-swathed in gossamer
mists; over the far-spreadng jungles
where giant lianias wrap themselves
about dark, spice-scented trees, and
gorgeous blossoms open odorous chalices
trimming with crystal dews; and drink.
ing in with parted lips the prodigal
beauty Of it all, he wonders il this may
not be the gateway of heaven.
Heaven. Even as the thought is born
there sweeps over the scene a shadow
that might be flung by the fires Ct hell.
The thickets before him spring into
motion. They are alive with armed men.
The crash of their guns bursts over HIM
like a storm. The green leaves shrivel
in the hot blasts of the vo!lcys that
sweep through them. The quick sue.
ceeding flashes play before him like sheet
lightning. His ears are stunned with
the wild uproar of desperate battle.
Yet if this were all-but alas, it, is not
Stripped of all its glamour and false
glory, the Man at last beholds this war
in the nakedness of it's full hideousneSs.
Amid the crash of exploding bombs and
the cries of men torn and bleeding, he
ii
with fair white buildings
homes of a brave people battling for
liberty-burst into flame. The volumed
smoke, faxed with scarlet, rolls around
the low gables and light balconies. and
the tiny easements filed with trans
parent shells reflect the angry glare.
The streets stream with people flying
for their lives. In that blind rush are
mothers clasping to their breasts their
helpless babes, little children sobbing in
the anguish of fear, old men and women
tottering, thrown down, trampled upon,
young girls fleeing with death in their
hearts from fate that in such an hour
as this ever threatens the young and
fair No wonder many a strong maG's
cheek grows wet and he curses beneath
his breath the malign influence that has
drawn him here and sucked him into
this maelstrom of death and ruin.
Does he who stands here gazing hear
those oaths?
They throb through his brain; they
beat upon. his soul And simultaneously
scene more terrible than all that has
gone before unrolls itself before him in
the skies.
They have Gar1eneG as with tine APP
proach of a tempest, yaporous gloom
drifting heavy and low And out of it's
sombre depths ever folding and rolling
in vast involutions, dread shadows that
gradually take upon themselves the
shapes of armed men--the simulacra of
heroes long dead but never forgotten
start into view, an innumerable multi
tude.
And the eyes of this ghostly host are
all fixed upon the scenes of carnage
upon the earth below. And sound that
is like the moan of the warning seas
thrills through the air hot with the odors
of blood and conflagration. And in that
sound the Man hears the gathered vol
ume of the voices of the heroes of
Bunker Hill and Yorktown murmuring
in tones of illimitable sadness:
"OH, GOD OF THE FREE WAS
IT FOR THIS THY CHILDREN
FOUGHT AND BLEED AND DIED?"
And darkness falls
Living he doubted; dead he
can doubt no longer. The souls of the
departed can and do revisit the scenes
of earth He himself, together with this
majestic Shade who never looks at him.
never speaks to him. yet whose steps it
is his doom ever TO attend no matter
amid what scenes of human anguish they
may lead him. has exchanged doubt for
certainty.
An impalpable entity viewless to the
eye of man, he pauses a moment now
beside the superb monument reared
above the body from which his soul was
divorced, it seems to him, but yesterday.
Anon he follows the stately presence.
whose name has been given to this
matchless city, whose streets they now
tread: and where, as they mingle with
the throngs on its spacious avenues, de-
spite the pomp and grandeur that every
where meets the eye. evidences of a ma
teriai civilization such as earth has never
before seen. he feels within all his being
pain more bitter than flesh and blood
may know.
1T is coming" he says the hour
which so long has threatened-the doom
which | more than all others helped 70
prepare. And yet my voice cannot reach
them Its warning cry might split the
very heavens, yet against the BARRIERS
between me and them it would beat Iii
vain"
Yes, the hour is near. He sees it in
the fearful contrasts that meet the eye
on every hand. The white splendor of
marble palace and the dark squalor Of
rotting wooden hovel, the sumptuous
banquet and silken couch for the few,
and the meagre crust and bed of straw
for the many, the flash of jewels and
glow of velvets on the one hand and the
threadhare coarse garments SO scant and
few ON the other all point to it uner-
ringly.
The people are divided by gulf as
wide and deep as death itself. The mid
die classes have vanished. There are
| none here now but the enormously rich
and the abjectly poor. The land of the
| free has become military .despotism.
| The money lords have seized the Gov
eminent. On high sits gilded oligarchy
with vast armies at his beck and call
Beneath, the great mass Of the people
! no longer freemen, but thralls, pale
| hoIlow-eyed, famine-wasted, consumed
| by dumb, murderous hate, but driven by
| the pitiless lash of hunger and the fear
| of hireling soldiery. toll and drop and
| die and are forgotten.
But what care the money lords for
4 Nx..I