“Home is a full cup, father!” she said. And Peter, standing at the head of his table, smiled at Yanna; and then lifted up his hands and asked God’s blessing on it!
CHAPTER IV
Fortunately for Adriana, the Filmers were not named at the dinner table. Antony had a new subject to discuss; for on the previous day, while in New York, an acquaintance had taken him to a Socialist meeting. The topic had been treated on its most poetic and hopeful side, and Antony was all enthusiasm for its happy possibilities. Peter listened without any emotion. He did not believe that crime, nor even poverty, would be abolished by merely new social arrangements.
“It is the inner change in individuals that will do it, Antony,” he said. “I have heard, and I have read, all sides of the Socialism of the day; and I tell you, it is half brutal, and altogether insufficient to cure existing wrongs.”
“But, father, if the framework of society, which is all wrong, is put all right, would not individuals in the mass take the right form? As far as I can judge, they are ready to run into any mold prepared for them.”
“No. You may set all without right; and all within may remain wrong. It is the new heart and the new spirit that is required. Will Socialism touch the inner man and woman? If not, then Socialism is a failure.”
“I do not think it hopes to do this at once; but wider education, more time, more money, more individual liberty——”
“Will only produce more license, more pride of intellect, 86 more self-will; and men and women will become as indomitable as the beasts of the desert; and a law unto themselves.”