"Why," she went on, "I put out little plants, and I love them, always, because they're going to grow, they're going to live. I love it—that thought of life, of growth. Well, can I make you understand, that was what I felt over yonder, in that revolution, in mid-Europe. I felt it was just like seeing little plants set out, to grow. Those poor people! Those poor people! They're coming over here, to grow, here in America, in this great country out here, in this West. They'll grow, like plants extending, like grass multiplying, going out, edging westward, all the time. Ah, thousands of them, millions yet to come, plants, little human plants, with the right to live born with them. I don't so much mind about their creed. I don't so much mind about race—their color, even. But to see them grow—why, I suppose God up in His Heaven looks down and smiles when He sees that. And we—we who are here for a little time—we who sometimes are given minds and means to fall in tune with God's smile—why, when we grow little and selfish, instead of getting in tune with the wish of God—why, we fail. Then, indeed, we do not pay—we repudiate our debt to ourselves."
"You are shaming me," he said slowly. "But I see why they put you out of Washington."
"But they can not put God out of Heaven! They can not turn back the stars! They can not stop the rush of those westbound feet, the spread of the millions, millions of blades of grass edging out, on. That is what will make you see this 'higher law,' some time. That is big politics, higher than what you call your traditions. That will shame little men. Many traditions are only egotism and selfishness. There is a compromise which will be final—not one done in a mutual cowardice. It's one done in a mutual largeness and courage.
"Oh,"—she beat her hands together, as was sometimes her way—"America, this great West, this splendid country where the feet are hurrying on so fast, fast—and the steam now carries men faster, faster, so that it may be done—it may be done—without delay—why, all this America must one day give over war and selfishness—just as we two have tried to give over war and selfishness, right here, right now. Do you suppose this world was made just to hold selfishness and unhappiness? Do you think that's all there ever was to the plan of life? Ah, no! There's something in living beyond eating and drinking and sleeping and begetting. Faith—a great faith in something, some plan ahead, some purpose under you—ah, that's living!"
"But they banished you for that?"
"Yes, that's why they put me out of Washington, I suppose. I've been twice banished. That is why I came here to this country. Maybe, Sir, that is why I came to you, here! Who shall say as to these things? If only I could feel your faith, your beliefs to be the same as mine, I'd go away happy, for then I'd know it had been a plan, somehow, somewhere—for us, maybe."
His throat worked strongly. There was some struggle in the man. At last he spoke, and quietly. "I see what separates us now. It is the wall of our convictions. You are specifically an abolitionist, just as you are in general a revolutionist. I'm on the other side. That's between us, then? An abstraction!"
"I don't think so. There are three walls between us. The first you put up when you first met me. The second is what you call your traditions, your belief in wasting human life. The third—it's this thing of which you must not speak. Why should I ponder as to that last wall, when two others, insurmountable, lie between?"
"Visionary, subjective!"
"Then let us be concrete if you like. Take the case of the girl Lily. She was the actual cause of your getting hurt, of many men being killed. Why?"