Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-12
Continued from Yesterdays Starr
INSTALLMENT xxXvII.

AN0AAAk<NhEN4 AAANlIs
~ URING the two weeks of Brain
ards illness and convalescence
Phyllis realized more and more
IL that the world itself was sick
And more and more clearly
she understood that its wound, If not
his, was poisoned. Whatever was
wrong with the Vicarion, 1t was the VII
carton, or the use to which it had been
put. that was wrong with the people
What was it? Clearly 1t was venom
Of which all normal conditions could
die-were dyingi
Barred from going to see Radley-
shut away from him as it were by a
gate of many bars--She agoniZed over
the fact that the mere being with him
through what she knew must be the
crisis impending was denied her. But
It had done him no good for her to
rush to him before. 1t had done her
no good. Physical nearness brought
no spiritual contact. At his side she
was still infinitely separated from him
separated by barrier as awful as the
Vicarion'S sheer gauze screen. Why
was it that continually, continually, the
conditions surrounding the Vicarion
paralleled terrifyingly the conditions of
life? Was it because its liquid visions
were, after ALL life's true presentation?
And if so, was it any marvel that the
world was sick-sick of life itSelf2
Conditions were swiftly becoming in
tolerable Problems of living were
rapidly becoming acute, while people
still spent their time as spectators of
past events.
And two phases of the passion that
swayed them were as evident as the
effects of all deep reaching stimulants.
Greed grew for more and more of the
thing upon which the appetite only in
creased; and subtle cowardice, born
of vague recognition of the chimera
looming ruinously over them, accom-
panied it. People knew, while they
glutted, that disaster impended. VAR
iously they interpreted it--or not at ALL
Some were aware that physical neces-
sites must be attended to. If dire results
were to be avoided. Some understood
that the very fear of each other, de-
Veloped and progressively augmented by
constant exposures of private life. must
lead to some catastrophe. Some saw
that reaction would follow as inevitably
as night the day when a people, or
race, rushed to any mad extreme. Yet
no one could foreSee or forecast the end
To Phyllis the idea became a haunt
ing obseSsion that this vast ocean of
the past that had been tapped was run
ming in upon living people like the
flood at the growing break in the dixie!
The vision of world drowning in a
flood of life-too much life!-the whole
life of all time sweeping down upon one
little generation!-was paralyzing. She,
like others who had an inkling of the
truth. could only stand still. Nowhere
might one run with human feet from
6elugel
Relief Brainard was her only COM
panion now who could be called a COM
panion. Sometimes they talked to-
gether, when they could even discuss
the spectacle.
"Give them enough of it and they
will learn that reality lies in something
the Vicarion will never touch!" the
Older woman tried again to phrase it.
But 1t sounded as weak and paltry as
all attempts to put such things under
blanket formulate.
"But you'd think it might change
people for the better somehow, instead