"Nothing can be effected nowadays by mere writing," Doctor Bruck said, from the window where he was standing. "The most gifted pens have written unweariedly upon the subject, and the waves of popular agitation rise higher and higher, and float all their theories from the paper."
Every eye turned towards him. "Ah! and what is to be done, then?" Flora asked, sharply.
"Meet the people and their demands face to face. What avails it to collect laboriously all the evidence 'for and against' from the mass of memorials and pamphlets that cumber your writing-table——"
"Oh, pray——" And her eyes lit up with sudden fire.
"And add your mite to the pile of dead published matter?" he went on, undeterred. "These people will scarcely read your articles, and if they should, what good would it do them? Words cannot build homesteads for them. The larger part of the solution of this problem belongs to the women of the families of our capitalists, to their mild influence in modifying masculine severity, their gentle mediation, their wisdom. But very few take the trouble to reflect upon the matter, or, what is more important than all else, to question their own hearts. They require at the hands of the men the means for providing for their needs, which at the present day are almost boundless, and never consider that the elements of a fearful conflict are gathering and growing at their very doors."
The Frau President slowly passed her slender hands down the satin folds of her gown, and, without heeding the last remark, said, complacently, "I like to give, but I am not used to put my alms directly into the hands of my beneficiaries myself, and thus it may easily occur that the number and value of my charities are not known. I am quite willing to have them ignored, even although I am thus made responsible, as it were, for the barbarities to which we are daily exposed."
"These barbarities are detestable. No one can condemn them more severely than I," Doctor Bruck rejoined, in a tone as cold as her own, "but——"
"Well, 'but'? You still maintain that we women of the capitalists' families have provoked them?"
"Yes, Frau President. You have deterred the capitalist from coming to the assistance of his people when their demand was not unreasonable, not one of those extravagant requirements that at present cast suspicion and discredit upon the cause of an entire party. They did not ask for charity, but simply to be allowed, with the help of their employer, to struggle upwards to a happier daily life."
The old lady tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and said, kindly, but in a curt, decisive tone, evidently intended to cut short all discussion, "You are an idealist, Herr Doctor."