Sarah K. Bolton

Cleveland, Ohio.

PREFACE

Mr. W.D. Howells, in reply to a literary society in Ashtabula County, Ohio, said that most people had within their personal experience one book.

I have often quoted Howells's words to my best friend, who has written a score of books, and the answer as frequently comes, "Why not write a book yourself?" Encouraged by Howells's belief, and stimulated by the accepted challenge of my friend, to whom I promised a completed book in twelve months, I found time during a very busy year to pencil the chapters that follow. Most of the book was written while waiting at stations, or on the cars, and in hotels, using the spare moments of an eight-months' lecture season, and the four months at home occupied by business.

I am aware that some critics decry a novel written with a purpose. Permit me therefore in advance to admit that this book has a double purpose: To test the truth of Howells's words as applied to myself; and to describe a journey, both at home and abroad, which may possibly be enjoyed by the reader, the inconveniences of travel being lessened by incidentally tracing a love story to a strange but perhaps satisfactory conclusion; the whole leading to the evolution of a successful experiment, which in fragments is being tried in various parts of the civilized world.

CONTENTS

[CHAPTER I--The Harrises in New York]
[CHAPTER II--Mr. Hugh Searles of London Arrives]
[CHAPTER III--A Bad Send-off]
[CHAPTER IV--Aboard the S.S. Majestic]
[CHAPTER V--Discomfitures at Sea]
[CHAPTER VI--Half Awake, Half Asleep]
[CHAPTER VII--Life at Sea a Kaleidoscope]
[CHAPTER VIII--Colonel Harris Returns to Harrisville]
[CHAPTER IX--Capital and Labor in Conference]
[CHAPTER X--Knowledge is Power]
[CHAPTER XI--In Touch with Nature]
[CHAPTER XII--The Strike at Harrisville]
[CHAPTER XIII--Anarchy and Results]
[CHAPTER XIV--Colonel Harris Follows his Family Abroad]
[CHAPTER XV--Safe Passage, and a Happy Reunion]
[CHAPTER XVI--A Search for Ideas]
[CHAPTER XVII--The Harrises Visit Paris]
[CHAPTER XVIII--In Belgium and Holland]
[CHAPTER XIX--Paris, and the Wedding]
[CHAPTER XX--Aboard the Yacht "Hallena"]
[CHAPTER XXI--Two Unanswered Letters]
[CHAPTER XXII--Colonel Harris's Big Blue Envelope]
[CHAPTER XXIII--Gold Marries Gold]
[CHAPTER XXIV--The Magic Band of Beaten Gold]
[CHAPTER XXV--Workings of the Harris-Ingram Experiment]
[CHAPTER XXVI--Unexpected Meetings]
[CHAPTER XXVII--The Crisis]