The Washington times. (Washington [D.C.]) 1901-1902, 1902-03-02


and electric railroads elevated on
above another; with its clangin
steam carts and carriages rattlin,
over its iron pavements; its foun
dations pierced to frightful depths by ele
vator shafts, and honeycombed with rail
way tunnels and pneumatic tubes divin,
under and over each other, crossing an,
recrossing.
How good it is to be here, Eric; t
have the fields around you and the wood:
and water where you can see them ever,
day. 1t seems like being very close tc
nature, doesn't it? It's living to met
Alora sat up very straight on the rocl
and took a prolonged Whit of the breeze
that flew fresh from the sea, her eyes
going out over the green stretches and
the river to the hills beyond "Oh,
don't think we can be too thankful for
living now. We don't half appreciate
third century,
Eric stretched himself at full length
on the grass at her feet and looked about
him without displaying any enthusiasm
over his lot. Sometimes l think we are
| not so much better off, he said slowly.
Not better off! l wish you could have
read what's I've been reading about New
York. 1t just made my heart ache to
think of those poor wretches and what
| they've missed. And / suppose they
thought they were living, too Only
think of the millions who were hived up
in the huge city, living by electric light,
! with hardly glimpse OF the sun from one
| years end to the other. don't wonder
| the death rate increased to 10 per cent
! of the population. and the daily average
of suicides was two hundred And think
OF that ceasless roar, l fancied /
could hear it while / read-night and day
that horrible roar that filled hundred
great asylums for the insane with half
million patients. Then when 1t was all
so bad that it couldn't get much worse
came Chauvel with his theories Spread
and now New York is a name, and we
are here with our Township No. /. 1t
was such splendid idea to have No i
right on the site of the greatest of all the
old cities, and make il a monument to
Chauvel, the man with a cobweb in his
brain. / wonder IL those men expected
forever to go on adding more stories to
their Towers of Babel, and connecting
new methods for shooting people up and
down them or through the streets, 1t was
all a big treadmill. Their inventions
made life unbearabie. And then they had
to contrive ways to overcome the OBJ
stacles their inventions had created; and
the new improvements made other inven-
tions necessary, and the more they in
vented the more unhappy they were. Per-
haps they looked forward to our times |
and saw us even more enslaved than |
themselves to inventions still more mar
velous. They thought human progress |
was straight line. We are inclined to
think it may be a circle. Certainly we
seem much nearer to their ancestors
than they were. Our advance is toward
What is it you object to-
Eric?"
"a good many things. 1 don't half like
our marriage system, for example. 1t is
all very perfect when you think of it in
the abstract, but when you come to apply
it personally it is quite probable that |
you might discover some flaws in it. l
don't see why there isn't a chance for
an immense amount of unhappiness. /
can tell you / felt relieved when the
bureau finished its sitting last year. My
last birthday made me eligible. and came
while the marriage bureau was in session.
used to dread coming home at night for
fear | should find my notice on the table; |
and i can tell you | had whole drove
Of nightmares about it. You want to
laugh, but it's not such laughing mat
ter when you come right down to it. Wait
until your turn comes"
II don't doubt 1t would seem little
strange at first, but what better system |
could we have? What is your plan?"
Il haven't any-only perhaps the old
way was the best after all"
you wouldn't bring back the old belief
n romances!"
"knd why not?'
ooh, Eric, you make my faith in you I
Why, how absurd the old way
vas. The romance of love was sung by /
he poets and discussed by the essay writ I
IT'S until all the world got into the habit |
If thinking it was a reality, that 1t was !
that must come to everyone. L
so wonder, then, that as each arrived at
certain age he imagined himself suffer- '
ng with the disease. 1t was fancy, not l
ommon sense, that chose the life COM L
and the ones selected were US b
ALLY the most ill-suited possible. In r
tead of admiring what was really admir-
BILE in each other, and making the best g
4 what was not at all SO, each must q
orm an ideal image of the other, embody- S
ng all the virtues of the original, along L
Nth a hundred others that never existed,
nd not single fault 1t was marriage 4
hat shattered the image. Then those c
pho had been mated according to reason t
ct their fancies go, and friendship came Z
n place of the romantic love, and they g
;ere good comrades. Other high-minded IL
ersons, when the hallucination was gone n
nd they realized that nature had never b
lcant them for each other, still tried to b
lake the best of it, but there was no fl
appiness left. They were together and p
ct most pitiably alone, unsatisded and q
either life could give out the best that G
as in it. Another class found relief |,
trough the abominaton of divorce. Isn't il
slligent men and women of the COM ri