"Hasn't any? What do they call it? the Believers, I mean?"
"They call it 'Living' and 'Life'—that's all."
"Hm! and what's their specialty?"
Nellie gave a funny little laugh, part sad, part tender, part amused.
"I had no idea it would be so hard to tell you things," she said. "You'll have to just see for yourself, I guess."
"Do go on, Nellie. I'll be good. You were going to tell me, in a nutshell, what had happened—please do."
"The thing that has happened," said she, slowly, "is just this. The world has come alive. We are doing in a pleasant, practical way, all the things which we could have done, at any time before—only we never thought so. The real change is this: we have changed our minds. This happened very soon after you left. Ah! that was a time! To think that you should have missed it!" She gave my hand another sympathetic squeeze and went on. "After that it was only a question of time, of how soon we could do things. And we've been doing them ever since, faster and faster."
This seemed rather flat and disappointing.
"I don't see that you make out anything wonderful—so far. A new Religion which seems to consist only in behaving better; and a gradual improvement of social conditions—all that was going on when I left."
Nellie regarded me with a considering eye. "I see how you interpret it," she said, "behaving better in our early days was a small personal affair; either a pathetically inadequate failure to do what one could not, or a Pharisaic, self-righteous success in doing what one could. All personal—personal!"