The Beauty and the Bolshevist

“I Beg Your Pardon. Is This a Private Raft?”
Author of “ The Charm School ” “ Ladies must Live ” “ Come out of the Kitchen ” etc .
Illustrated
Harper & Brothers Publishers New York and London
Printed in the United States of America Published October, 1920
The editor of that much-abused New York daily, Liberty , pushed back his editorial typewriter and opened one letter in the pile which the office-boy—no respecter of persons—had just laid upon the desk while whistling a piercing tune between his teeth.
The letter said:
DEAR BEN,—I hate to think what your feelings will be on learning that I am engaged to be married to a daughter of the capitalistic class. Try to overcome your prejudices, however, and judge Eugenia as an individual and not as a member of a class. She has very liberal ideas, reads your paper, and is content to go with me to Monroe College and lead the life of an instructor’s wife. You will be glad to know that Mr. Cord disapproves as much as you do, and will not give his daughter a cent, so that our life will be as hard on the physical side as you in your most affectionate moments could desire. Mr. Cord is under the impression that lack of an income will cool my ardor. You see he could not think worse of me if he were my own brother. Yours, DAVID.
The fine face of the editor darkened. It was the face of an idealist—the deep-set, slowly changing eyes, the high cheek bones, but the mouth closed firmly, almost obstinately, and contradicted the rest of the face with a touch of aggressiveness, just as in Lincoln’s face the dreamer was contradicted by the shrewd, practical mouth. He crossed his arms above the elbow so that one long hand dangled on one side of his knees and one on the other—a favorite pose of his—and sat thinking.
The editor was often called a Bolshevist—as who is not in these days? For language is given us not only to conceal thought, but often to prevent it, and every now and then when the problems of the world become too complex and too vital, some one stops all thought on a subject by inventing a tag, like “witch” in the seventeenth century, or “Bolshevist” in the twentieth.